Guilty Gear: When the Sun finally Sets
by Spiritblade
Summary: M-Rating: Ky Kiske, Hero of the Crusades, now a wanted criminal, has one last task to do before he and his companions can leave their respective pasts behind. Memories sweet and bitter walk the streets of the Vatican. [CHAPTERS 3 RE-POSTED]
1. Chapter 1

_**Guilty Gear: When the Sun Sets**_

_**Chapter 1: Return to the Vatican**_

_**Written by Spiritblade**_

_**Disclaimer:**_This is another one of my practice attempts at perfecting the erotic genre, and I'm venturing into Guilty Gear for this. As everyone knows, Guilty Gear belongs to Daisuke Ishiwatari. I'm only borrowing the characters of the game for my own (perverted?) ends and to improve my mastery of the more…interesting genre (which comes harder to me than most). Now, on to the story – let me see if I can surpass myself. Also, I will be taking certain liberties in writing this story, so I hope I will be excused for this. This story will have ties to my GSD project, at least in regards to what had transpired in its distant past before the Cosmic Era dawned.

Be forewarned, though, I married White Wolf's Exalted to this story, as the artefacts mentioned within the former fits the era in which the Crusades (and the decades prior) took place. Before human civilisation falls into ruin, it must have somewhere to fall from – and what better then when it ALMOST manages to recapture the glory of an era humanity knows exist, but cannot remember when and what form it took?

Also, if you can find it, elements of Tsukihime and Shin Megami Tensei II (from SNES) are found within this story.

**Author's foreword (1/8/2014):** I have made amendments, additions and corrections to this chapter, so that it will flow smoothly and make more sense. Also added, at the end of the story, is a glossary. This, I hope, will help any writers who wish to write a Guilty Gear story based on my world. Though it will be prideful of me to say, I hope this story – and the best of my works – will be granted a place of honour on the TV Tropes website when it stands finished.

**(O)**

_The burden of saviours is that they cannot choose what they wish to save__._

Jason A. Archibald, _In the Shadow of the Imperial Aquila, _Cosmic Era 113.

The winter solstice was the longest night of the year, lasting two days from the 21st of December. It was, Ky Kiske thought as he and his companions emerged from the airship, a fitting night to mourn. On the nights before Christmas Eve, families throughout Europe, America and Asia would – regardless of their faiths – light candles for the departed and speak of days when the sky rained fire and monsters went to war with men. Days that the golden-haired, former Lord Commander of the Holy Order had nightmares of and prayed he would never have to see again; days which the Post-War Administration Bureau, whom everyone thought was part of the Reconstituted United Nations, had wanted to resurrect. And they had, in their desire to lay him low, intended to use him as the instrument to reawaken that nightmare.

He would never forget the day his sword almost spilt innocent blood, never forgive himself for almost becoming a monster made in the image of those who wanted him to be no better than they. The fear and despair he had seen in the eyes a half-Gear girl who would be his saviour both sickened and shamed the former Holy Knight. He saw what he was becoming in those eyes. The Bureau's agents had made use of his hatred of the Gears and the pain he had suffered during the Crusades to manipulate him into finding that which would make them the world's masters once more. The former Holy Order commander tightened his grip around the hilt of the Thunderseal. Sol had been right: he was a fool. Right alone did not give one the strength to defeat the wicked. One could not change the world if it chose not to change, especially if its rulers were determined to repeat past mistakes.

But one could take away the choices that could make the world change for the worse. One could deprive the wicked of the sword that they would use to vanquish the just. The man looked over his shoulder at one of his companions. Standing at the entrance of the sky-ship was a young woman of perhaps twenty years of age, her ruby eyes wide and filled with awe and wonderment as she beheld the fortress-city that was the site of one of the greatest battles of the Gear-Human war and which was the heart of Christendom on Earth: the Vatican. The girl's name was Dizzy, and she was the sole heir to the mantle of the Commander Gear whose name still held the power to make the princes of the Earth tremble. She was the target of the Wyld Hunt that the Bureau had declared some three years after the end of the Crusades and who the golden-haired ex-Holy Knight had almost murdered in his hate-filled rage.

Long, dark blue hair the colour of sun-warmed oceans fluttered in the cold, night wind and the thick cloak that Ky had purchased for the girl in Romania parted briefly, revealing the lush, lithe body and the dichromatic wings that lay hidden beneath the fabric. The memory of said body straddling his own, of ruby eyes looking down at him with a mixture of love and lust, caused the golden-haired Holy Knight to redden and turn away quickly. He found himself looking into the grinning, knowing face of one of his oldest friends. Said individual was a curvaceous woman with long, brown hair tied up in a ponytail and wearing a traditional Chinese _qipao_ and a scandalously short skirt that revealed bared her long, muscular legs. A sight that made his heart race and which brought back memories of quiet nights spent in a room overlooking Tiananmen Square.

The golden-haired man swallowed hard. He remembered what the Chaplain who had once ministered to his company during the Crusades had told him: a good life was one that was lived according to God's dictates. Dictates he had breached time and time again, with women who were all too willing to show him that to live a full life did not require his living a virtuous one. It was a contradiction that Sol, curse his name, was all too fond of pointing out to him – and one that the Almighty would use to send him straight to Purgatory. It would have been fine had he been involved with one woman. But, in the months after his decision to oppose the PWAB, he had gotten involved with several.

Each had brought with them enough pain to break a mountain. He remembered the outlaw he had been sent after in the months after he had met Dizzy. The outlaw, better known by her sobriquet as the Winter Blossom Blade Dancer, had been accused by the International Court of Justice of assassinating several important government officials. Officials, the former Holy Knight found out, who had been involved with Avernus, a criminal organization involved in the drugs, arms and slave trade. Her sister had been kidnapped and sold to one of said officials. When the vigilante managed to find her sister, the latter was beyond saving – her mind had been broken and she was a drug addict. Another had been Millia Rage, who had been a member of the feared Assassin's Guild. Code-named 'Medusa' by Interpol agents, the golden-haired assassin had been placed on Interpol's wanted list for murder and terrorism. Those who were fortunate enough to survive meeting the regal assassin described her as a cruel angel. And she had been as mighty as one, strengthened as she was by one of the Six Forbidden Rituals. Her hair had been a weapon more lethal than any blade ever crafted by the hands of Man. But her weapon bore upon its multitudinous strands memories of pain and guilt. An assassin, she had told him, was a weapon. It was an instrument. It had neither a soul nor a conscience. Should it acquire either, his or her time as one is over. And in the Assassin's Guild, there was only ever one way to leave it – dead or feet first.

The last was a fate he wished to spare the women who accompanied him. It was the reason why he had returned to the Vatican. He had hoped that what he had discovered would give the International Court of Justice and Interpol a good reason to call off their pursuers and turn their attention on the rot that lay within the system. That is, if he could meet with their representatives before the bounty hunters the PWAB sent got to him.

"Ky? Are you all right?" Jam's concerned voice broke Ky out of his thoughts.

"Huh…oh, I'm sorry, Miss Jam. I was just thinking…"

The woman tightened her grip around her lover's arm, causing the latter to wince. The female chef-cum-martial artist was strong. And having fought her once before, the former Holy Knight knew just **HOW** strong. He had seen his amorous companion shatter reinforced concrete and kick a tank turret over tread. It did not take much for one to come to the conclusion that angering the brown-haired woman was a bad idea.

"About…?"

Ky Kiske turned his gaze briefly to the enormous edifice of the Grand Cross Citadel. It was all the answer Jam needed.

"You know," the brown-haired woman whispered as she tightened her hold around her lover's arm, "You need not go. We can leave and…"

"If he does that, Jam-san," a third voice interrupted, "then everything we have done would have been for nothing. The risks we took and the sacrifices our allies made would be ash in the wind. We will forever be hunted. There will be nowhere in the world where we can run or hide. It is a fate that our children do not deserve."

Jam and Ky turned to look at the speaker. Emerging from the shadow of several crates was a woman with long, pink hair and carrying a Japanese sword. Her well-worn kimono clung to and emphasized a shapely body that had known hardship and which had never known the touch of a man until recently. Cerise eyes which had once held within its depths barely-contained fury softened when they alighted on the man whom her compatriots had regarded as her sheath. Jam giggled inwardly. Perhaps the right adage was that Ky was the blade that was sheathed by many scabbards.

"Miss Baiken," Ky nodded in greeting, "Are you…"

"All right?" the female _ronin_ finished the former Holy Knight's sentence, "You worry too much, boya. I am more than capable of taking care of myself. And before you ask, yes, it is done. The Master of Legion's contact within the Vatican has managed to arrange a meeting with Cardinal Lybrand. The priest was, for lack of better description, quite shocked at your daring to come into the lion's den. Eckhart-_taishou_," Baiken looked past Ky and Jam to the man standing at the entrance of the cruiser, "We thank you for your assistance these past few weeks."

Eckhart Krueger, owner of the airship _Swift Herald_, was the head of the family-run regional White Hawk Postal Services. Like the younger man before him, the German had once been a Knight of the Holy Order and had fought in the bloodiest years of the Crusades. Though his fighting days were long over, the man was as strong as when he had crossed swords with the mightiest of the Gear hosts.

"It's nothing, _Frau _Dizzy. My family and I owe Commander Kiske a great deal. Getting you into the Vatican," Eckhart drew in a deep breath of cold air that was heavy with the weight of age and honor, "hardly counts as repaying the favor. But I am amazed, _Herr _Kiske. I heard the rumors that you had taken up with Justice's daughter…" and a cheeky grin lit up the older man's face, "But this!" he gave the women around the younger man an approving look before whistling, "My wife is going to laugh her head off when I tell her that you have a harem! And can you imagine how our brother and sister knights are going to react when they find out that the rumors are actually true?"

"Oh," Dizzy said as she materialized behind her lover, her lithe arms wrapping around the latter with inhuman strength, "I can imagine. After all, the very interesting images in your head are not far from the truth, Master Eckhart," the half-Gear's voice became husky, and the temperatures of everyone around her went up several degrees, "And believe me, when he gets in the mood, it would take all the whores in a Parisian brothel to satisfy him…"

"Dizzy!" the scandalized, golden-haired ex-Holy Knight was having a near meltdown. Eckhart exploded in raucous laughter, a display of mirth echoed by the brown-haired Chinese woman and the pink-haired Japanese swordswoman. Many within the Holy Order had long wondered what kind of woman Ky Kiske would have warming his bed. Some believed that he would prefer an elegant, refined woman, perhaps a daughter of one of the noble Houses or a high-class courtesan. Others pointed out that he was far more comfortable with women who wore the colors of the Holy Order, whose bodies were not soft and pampered but which had known hardship and whose scars lent allure to their beauty. A small number had gone as far as to postulate that Ky Kiske's sexual preferences laid in the exotic and the forbidden.

They – excluding those among their number who believed that the White Knight preferred men – were right. But these would have been shocked to learn just how far over the line their commander had crossed. He had taken a Gear as a bride. It would have been shocking enough had the revered hero of the Crusades taken a succubus or an elven Gear as a mate, but the daughter of Justice herself? The sheer treason of it paralleled Lucifer's rebellion against God, but the reasons behind the First Angel's decision to raise up the banner of revolt against God and Ky Kiske's decision to turn his back on the Church were as different as night was from day.

And the other two women who shared the White Knight's bed…? They were as exotic as they were dangerous. Eckhart had never been as far as China, but he had heard stories of the Asian woman who had managed to claim the reward for killing the daughter of Justice. That she was not someone to be trifled with was clear. The same could not be said of the pink-haired Japanese swordswoman, whose name was whispered even by the members of the feared Assassins' Guild. That one, beautiful as she was, was a predator whose thirst for blood was monstrous, and whose sole leash was the man she was laughing at.

And they were all women who were intent on ensuring that Ky Kiske's remaining years were ones that would make the most jaded libertine of the noble Houses green with envy.

It took a while before the laughter finally subsided, by which time Eckhart informed the young man before him that he and his crew would be in town for the next five days, enjoying the festivities before returning home.

"Also," the older man added, "I recommend that you keep to the side-streets and your face hidden, commander. The reasons why, I think you already know. If you need to get out of the city fast, you know where to find me and my crew."

Ky nodded; he knew the place that Eckhart spoke of. The Kashmir nightclub was the favorite haunt of the Knights of the Holy Order and the soldiers of the United Nations Combined Armed Forces during the Crusades. When it ended, it became a place where the scarred, broken veterans of humanity's armies gathered to drown their sorrows, toast lost comrades and speak of battles won and lost. Trophies won during the war hung from the club's rafters, and shrines to the fallen lined the wall, under the watchful gazes of saints and angels. It was there that, during the days prior to his elevation to Lord Commander, that he had met I-no. The insane and seductive guitarist had been there to do more than entertain its patrons; she had been there to lead him into sin's waiting arms.

The White Knight of the Holy Order shivered both in fear and in desire. The sex appeal of the dark-haired, scantily-clad musician was a potent thing, a physical force that forbade defiance. Ky Kiske remembered how aroused he had been when she had leaned over, the hungry gleam in her eyes and the way she had shamelessly bared her body an invitation to take what she offered. He had refused her once, but not the second time. And the second time…Ky Kiske closed his eyes, trying to forget the look of approval in I-No's eyes. The former Holy Knight had known that the Crusades was a brutal war, one that could turn decent men and women into monsters far worse than the ones they took up arms against. Those whose transgressions went beyond the pale soon found themselves either incarcerated or executed. Sol had told him, in the aftermath of one such trial, that the battlefield was a place where ideals and virtues could not endure. It was a hard world filled with harder people.

'_You're a dreamer, kid__. You think that all that crap you believe in will save the world? Make us better than the monsters we're fightin' against? This is for real. God is not here. He is not going to send down all the Heavenly Army to beat the shit out of Justice and her monsters. And don't you look at me that way, boy. I can kick your ass from here till the Pearly-Shit Gates, and you know it._

'_Let me tell you one thing, Kiske: this war was not because we 'sinned' big-time against God like those pricks in the Church said. It happened because__,__ a long ago, there were people like those pencil-pushers in the UN and the noble Houses who were more interested in screwing each other over than working together. When humanity discovered the power of the atom, it took less than a generation for the nuclear bomb to be created. When _Principia Magicus_ was discovered, it took less than a decade before its original use was perverted._

'_Believe me w__hen I tell you this, Kiske: humanity will make the same mistakes all over again. You are the Lord Commander of the Order now. You can make the difference as to whether this nightmare will repeat itself. And doing that, kid, takes more guts than you have now.__'_

"There's one more thing I almost forgot to mention, boya," Baiken said, breaking Ky out of his train of thought, "The Cardinal will only be able to see you tomorrow. He will send his contact to meet you at the Grand Cross Citadel. Until then, as Eckhart-san had advised, we will have to keep our heads low. You may have saved the human race, but the memory of a select – and powerful – few are short. And these will want our youngest sister in their clutches so as to be made this world's masters once more. "

Ky nodded his agreement, "Have you secured our accommodations, Baiken?"

The swordswoman pulled a pipe from her sash, "Fear not, boya. I've made sure that our accommodations are up to standard," and she licked her lips in a manner that made the golden-haired ex-Holy Knight swallow hard and his other two companions to grin, "And more importantly, private. I have no wish to be interrupted while I'm in the middle of entertaining a very important guest."

It took Eckhart all of his willpower to not erupt in laughter a second time.

**(O)**

_**The Broken Sword Inn, Rome**_

_**Three hours later…**_

The accommodations that Baiken had secured were located within Trajan's Market, where the Romans had once, centuries ago, conducted affairs of trade and commerce. Revived in the decades preceding the Crusades, the Market was a melting pot of ethnicities and cultures. But the Market had two faces. During the day, its stalls would sell goods from across the world, delivered to them by truck, train and airship. When night fell, Trajan's Market became a den of vice and carnality where the virtuous dared not tread. And he was most certainly no longer that. Ky Kiske looked into the fire-lit and warmed interiors of the room. Resting contentedly on the bed were his three companions, all in various degrees of nudity. His mind replayed a conversation that had taken place during the Crusades, when the more sexually-active members of his company (back when he had been an Acolyte of the Order) bragged about their conquests to their peers. Lovable rogues, one and all, whose passion matched only their devotion to the cause they chose to champion. They lived as fiercely as the fought, taking great delight in trying to out-drink, out-fight and out-fuck the other. He had lost count of the number of times they had tried to drag him out on one of their outings.

But the golden-haired former Holy Knight had always refused. Not for him was the sweet lull of liquor or the company of women whose morals would have driven the saints themselves up the wall. But the Battle of Florence and the Siege of San Marino had been the straw – or rather, straws – that broke the camel's back. The Gears had launched a massive assault on both cities, hell-bent on razing the two fortress-cities to the ground so that their primary target, the Vatican, would be unable to repel the inevitable assault that the Order's leaders knew would come within days of either city falling. Ky had been at Florence. He had been there when the city died. Over a hundred thousand souls were ushered into God's presence, and the formidable defenses that had once guarded the northern overland approaches to the Holy See were devastated.

The Holy Order and UN forces stationed at San Marino had managed to break the assault, but were unable to send reinforcements to their beleaguered peers to the west or to stop Justice's advance on the Vatican days later. On the sixth day of the retreat, Ky had found the broken body of his mentor, Kliff Undersen, at the feet of the Commander Gear Justice. The latter had died as he had lived, in battle and without fear. He remembered the grief and the rage that had blinded him as he attacked Justice, who had defeated him with contemptuous ease and pinned him to the ground. He remembered the way the Gear Commander had looked down at him, her inhuman eyes filled with as much scorn as her voice.

"_You…? You are Kliff's heir? No. No, you are unworthy__.__ You are weak. Deluded. Blind. You believe the lies that have led your race to this pathetic finale. I am sorely tempted to end your life here and now, boy, so as to spare you the agony of watching the last of your race being consigned to oblivion. But your predecessor has asked me to give you a chance to prove yourself, and so I shall. It will amuse me to see how you and your species will try to avert the inevitable__…"_

Ky closed his eyes. The days leading up to the Siege of Rome had been dark ones. The news that Florence had fallen to the Gears and that the Supreme Commander of the Holy Order had been slain by his archenemy had sent shockwaves throughout those cities and countries still under human control. Morale within the Order and the UN Army plummeted. Crime rates soared. Everywhere the golden-haired Knight had turned, he saw nothing but despair and division. And for the first time since he had known Sol, the uncouth brown-haired swordsman had led him out of the Grand Cross Citadel and told him in no uncertain terms to leave matters to him. He would, he had said, set the Chapter Masters of the Order straight. And when the Immoral Flame made such promises, there was no doubt in the minds of those who heard it that said individuals who had gotten into his bad books were in for a beating. His last words to Sol before he left for the Kashmir nightclub had been for the latter to leave as many of the dissenting Chapter Masters alive, if possible. When Justice came, they just might be able to convince her to accept an armistice or risk death by boredom. Sol had laughed at that, one of the rare times that he had done so.

"Ky…?" a familiar, musical voice broke the White Knight out of his memories. The latter turned to see the winged form of Dizzy, her voluptuous form warmed and illuminated by the firelight. Ky could not help but stare at the Gear Commander. Like her mother, Dizzy was the incarnation of physical perfection. Dark blue hair cascaded like a waterfall over her shoulders and her large, firm breasts to her ankles. Her shapely hips and tail swayed as she walked towards him, lending the Gear Commander the appearance of an elegant predator that would toy with its prey before devouring it whole. Try as he might not to do so, Ky found his eyes drawn towards the juncture of Dizzy's thighs. Her nether regions were hairless, and her inner thighs glistened in the firelight, slick with the fluids from their lovemaking. Arousal coursed through the man's body, and he felt his phallus swell and harden at the thought of sheathing himself in her body once more.

The girl smiled, her ruby eyes burning like coals in the darkness. She could sense her mate's lust. It burned like bright in her soul-sight. That was good. She wanted more. Her body thirsted for her lover's seed, and wanted it to flood her womb once more. Her mother's voice, rich with amusement and approval, echoed in her mind: _'__We were made, daughter of mine, not only as weapons by which the human race wielded in their endless wars, but also as lovers, teachers and companions. It should not surprise you that there are many in the world that there are those who have our blood running in their veins. Nor should it surprise you that – then as now – that there are those who would take one of us as a mate, an act which would earn them no small amount of condemnation.'_

Indeed, Dizzy had seen the loathing society had for those who would love that which had nearly destroyed humanity. She had seen its venom directed against the man whose lap she now straddled. She had seen its malice directed towards a wandering doctor who had once served alongside Ky during the bleakest days of the Crusades, as he tried to heal the wounds of a bitter war. She had heard of what happened to those who had chosen to transgress laws written in the blood of millions and the death of nations. The hardliners within the Church and the IPF mandated execution (should the individual have the misfortune of being be caught by the first) and/or a lengthy prison stay (as is normally the case should the IPF get to said individual first).

"What are you thinking about, Ky?" Dizzy asked as she put her hands on her lover's thighs, the posture accentuating her large, firm breasts and further raising the temperature of the latter. It did not help matters that she had cut off any avenue of egress; that her lover could feel how wet she was and that she could see his enormous erection. The gentle smile the Gear Commander had on her lips became playful. It would no doubt surprise the White Knight's peers at how easily he had taken to intercourse, and how much he enjoyed it. The first time he had made love, it had taken Dizzy all of her considerable will to not bring the castle they had taken refuge in crashing down on their heads. After that first time, both Undine and Necro had made it a point to temporarily sever her link to the Heart of Creation prior to her and Ky making love.

It had amused Dizzy to see Necro, the Principle of Death and Ruin, actually complain that her orgasms were capable of splitting the planet in half. Undine, for her part, had giggled at her counterpart's discomfort and promised her that the next time she and Ky made love, it would be an unforgettable experience. It was only after the second time the Gear Commander had had intercourse with her mate did she realize just what the Principle of Ice and Thunder had done. The latter had increased the sensitivity of the erogenous zones on her body and saw to it that whenever she engaged in physical intimacy, she would secrete a hormone that would turn everyone within three meters of her into a sex fiend. It had mortified the Gear Commander at first, but she soon began to see the advantages of the changes Undine had made. It had been an easy matter to make – after some alterations – said changes permanent, much to the chagrin of the Angel (and the horror of Necro, who had proceeded to rain curses and threats on his counterpart for practically signing their death warrants).

But her desires could wait. For now, the Gear Commander wanted to know what troubled her human lover. The latter, knowing that it was useless to lie to the former, simply told her the truth. He was worried about the meeting tomorrow. Ky Kiske had heard many good things about Cardinal Lybrand, but bitter experience had taught him that the vilest of men were often those who stood in the light. Ky counted himself among their number. He had lost count of the number of times he had had to sign arrest warrants to bring one of his former subordinates in for heresy and treason. The irony that he now stood amongst their number was not lost on him.

Would Cardinal Lybrand inform the Inquisition about the meeting? Or would one of his aides, hearing that their superior was going to meet an excommunicated heretic and criminal, do so? Would the IPF's formidable intelligence network finally see through his deception? Would the assassins and bounty hunters be the ones that finally lay him low? Anything could go wrong. And when it did…

"You worry too much, dearest," Dizzy said as she leaned forward and kissed him, "Yes, I do not deny that there is a chance of what you fear happening. As such, I will give you one of my feathers before you leave for your meeting. Should Cardinal Lybrand decide to play us false, you and I will show him the error of his ways. Should those who hunt us find you, I will be by your side. Do not forget, my love, that this city is full of people who owe you your lives. Should your comrades in the Kashmir hear that you have returned to the city and that your enemies have managed to capture you…" the smile on the Gear Commander's face was arctic, "I will daresay that the riot will become a war within seconds. But enough talk and worrying…" Dizzy undid the belt that kept Ky's night-robe closed, willing her pheromones to flood the room, "I want continue where we left off…"

The heady, musky smell that filled the former paladin's nostrils was overpowering. It was the same smell that had filled the room when he and his companions had engaged in intercourse earlier. Flowery and musky, sweet and bitter all at the same time, it filled his head with electric warmth that dripped down to the rest of his body. Ky slipped the robe he had been wearing off his shoulders and down his arms before pulling Dizzy into his arms, relishing the feel of the latter's lush body against his own and the feel of his erection pressed hard against her pubic mound.

"I live but to serve, my lady," the White Knight said as he pulled the buxom, winged Gear into a kiss that left the latter dazed when he released her, "You need not employ any tricks to have me do what you wish. What is it you wish?"

"Need you ask, my love?" Dizzy said as she positioned herself over her lover's engorged member, the playful grin on her lips becoming a devilish one, "I want you inside me…"

And then, the lovely Gear Commander lowered herself onto her lover's engorged phallus, savoring the sensation of being impaled. A strange, eerie wail left Dizzy's lips, one redolent with pain and pleasure as her body shook with orgasms that would have registered on the Richter scale. The winged temptress sheathed her lover completely, her internal muscles gripping him tightly and playing along its length like a flute. The Gear Commander could feel her lover's phallus pushing at the entrance to her womb, could feel him touch parts of her that sent lightning and lava through her body and veins.

"Dizzy…" Ky's tormented voice sent a shiver up Dizzy's spine, and the latter looked down at her lover with a lustful leer, her dichromatic wings spread wide. The blue-haired Gear Commander placed her arms around her mate's shoulders and pulled him into her embrace, savoring the feeling of his body against hers. Had there been an observer to the lovemaking taking place in the room, they would have believed that a man was fornicating with a female devil. Scripture and dogma had reclaimed its preeminent position during the dark days of the Crusades, and the word of a high-ranking religious official had as much weight, if not more, than that of a head of state. To love a Gear was heresy, a sin punishable only by death.

Death was not something Ky Kiske of the Holy Order feared. What he feared was that those he loved – especially the women who had chosen to risk life and limb so that they could remain by his side – would be made to pay for his sins. He had lost count of the number of times those he had wronged had tried to avenge themselves by striking at those he held dear. Every blow they struck, he parried. And he ensured none would survive to make the second attempt. Johnny, leader of the Jellyfish Pirates, had told him in the aftermath of one such attempt that the man he knew and respected was replaced by someone he knew and _feared_. Ky Kiske of the Holy Order would never stoop to murder and calculated brutality. Ky Kiske the Heretic would sow terror in the hearts of his enemies and become a living nightmare.

But if that was what it took to keep the women he loved safe, then so be it.

"Speak my name, dearest," Dizzy whispered, "Worship me as you would God herself…"

Ky had always wondered why Dizzy had always regarded God as female, when scripture had depicted the Almighty as a masculine force. But seeing her back when she had protected him, Jam and Baiken from the full might of a UN artillery battalion, wings spread and her blue-hair a molten silver, her reptilian eyes gazing down fondly at him, made him realize just how much closer Dizzy was to God than all of humanity could ever hope to be. Devilish yet kind, innocent yet knowledgeable, weak yet wielding unimaginable power, Dizzy was a dichotomy that

"Dizzy…" his voice was rough with desire and filled with awe

The Gear Commander licked her lips slowly, her eyes becoming a shade of gold on black sclera, her voice holding within it the melodious echo of the Divine Symphony, "You belong to us, dearest. And for every moment till the day you die, you will know that one and only truth."

Pleasure the likes of which men could only dream of flooded him. He felt his seed erupt in an unending torrent, filling the Gear Commander's thirsting uterus and soiling the sinful angel in his arms further. The pheromones the latter had unleashed and the vigor she poured back into him as they made love served to redefine the very meaning of the act. The primal side of him wanted nothing more than to ravish the goddess in his arms and impregnate her repeatedly until she conceived. The latter wanted nothing more than to be sullied repeatedly by the man she loved and give birth to their children. The dazed, hungry look in Dizzy's eyes and the rapturous expression on her lovely face was breathtaking in a way that only the imagination of sensualists across the centuries could capture only in song and poetry.

In a brief moment of lucidity, he remembered what an old woman had told him as she pressed a book into his hand prior to his leaving with his company on his first campaign years ago. She told him that faith was a cathedral destined to crumble should the pillars of compassion, humility, wisdom and fortitude be absent. It would be a dark and cold place without love to illuminate its interiors, dreams to capture the splendor of Heaven and passion to warm those who would pray within it. The book the old woman had gifted him with rested in his bags, a constant companion in times good and bad. Said book was a collection of poems and parables from the holy books of the three monotheistic faiths which had emerged from the Middle East, a labor of love by her late husband who sought to change the world by bridging the deep rifts that had led humanity to ruin.

'_One day,'_ the old woman had said with a gentle smile, _'You will fall in love. And you will understand then that there are many things man cannot ordain or demand from God.'_

"More…" the blue-haired Gear Commander whispered.

Ky Kiske gave it all that he had, knowing that when the sun next rose, he would be lucky if he had the strength to get himself out of bed.

**(O)**

_**The Broken Sword Inn**_

_**The next day…**_

By the time Jam and Baiken had joined Dizzy for breakfast, Ky Kiske had already left the inn to meet with the Cardinal's emissary. The two women were in high spirits and were, for once, not shooting barbs at each other over breakfast. Dizzy smiled as she drank her tea; her decision to put them deep into slumber prior to her 'stealing' a private moment with her mate had been a good one. Putting down her cup, the Gear Commander studied her surroundings. The Broken Sword Inn was, despite its disreputable name and the district it was located in, well-run and staffed. Its owner – and more than half the inn's employees – had been former Holy Order and UN soldiers, all of whom had fought under Ky's command during the bloodiest days of the Crusades and who had been outraged when they heard of the bounty being placed on their former commander's head for crimes they knew he could not have committed.

Of the many charges levied against Ky Kiske, only three were true. The first was murder: Ky Kiske had killed many – and would do so again and without remorse – of the UN and PWAB agents sent his way. The second was treason: he had harbored under his wing the enemy that had nearly destroyed the human race. Worse, said enemy was the daughter of the monster that had led the inhumanly beautiful and deadly Gears to exterminate humanity. The third was for committing acts of terrorism: Ky Kiske had worked alongside the Jellyfish Pirates as well as many other anti-government groups and individuals to attack government installations that strove to rebuild that which had been lost in the Crusades.

It was in one such installation that Dizzy and her companions found something that humanity was better off without: a Soul Forge. Powered by the very energy source that would end decades of strife and give rise to the Age of Myth, a Soul Forge could create weapons and armor the likes of which Dizzy had been used by the Celestial and Terrestrial Exalted of the First Age. The Gear Commander's eyes fell to the Japanese swordswoman's katana and the ornate flintlock fire-wand pistol that her mate had given to the second during her 28th birthday. The ancient sword that Baiken had wielded in her vengeful quest to punish the creator of the Gears had vorpal qualities welded into the blade, echoing the terrible powers of a clan that made her mother tremble. The fire-wand pistol, despite its archaic design and short range, was capable of inflicting horrific injuries that made a mockery of her race's regenerative abilities and which could tear through the reinforced battle-plate that the UN had seen fit to equip its agents with.

But there were crueler weapons born from the Soul Forges and the twisted intellect of the tech-priests who violated willingly the dictates of their order. What historical and holographic records that had survived the Crusades told her of a time before the Gears rose in rebellion of when the world's superpowers sought to create weapons that would allow them to bring their enemies to heel and impose their will on those that sought to remain neutral in a cruel arena that did not allow such. Those same records described weapons such as the vicious Hell-Blades which turned its wielders into murderous berserkers and the dreaded Oblivion War-Scythes, which drained the vitality of those it wounded. They bespoke of fundamental alterations to the city-destroying Thousand-Forged Dragons and the creation of the hated and feared Jormungandr Talons, which brought plague and disease on an apocalyptic scale and which had reduced many of the world's greatest cities into ghost-haunted mausoleums. These weapons could only be created in the inferno of a corrupted Soul Forge – which was what Dizzy and her companions found in the depths of the heavily-guarded installation

And that was not all. They found a man who had once been once the Chapter Master of one of the Church's most revered Knightly Orders. He was a man whose tally of victories against the Gears was second to none and whom many had believed would be the next Supreme Commander of the Holy Order when his – and Ky's – predecessor, Kliff Undersen, stepped down. That man, who had traded his humanity in exchange for power equal to that of Justice's, had been none other than Chapter Master Lucius Valeren of the Order of the Golden Lion. A man whose thwarted ambition and affronted pride saw to him making a deal with the devil – and becoming one.

The ensuing battle had been one of the hardest the Gear Commander and her companions had ever fought in, if not the most vicious. The corrupted Chapter Master was one of a handful who could fight an Archangel Gear – and in Lucius's case, as well as its honor guard – and win. That near-peerless strength, when married to the Ritual of Black Exaltation which was once used by the American Army's Occult Warfare Division to combat the Dragon Warriors of China, as well as the Grand Daiklave that had been gifted to him upon his ascension to Chapter Master of the Celestial Lions, had made the fallen Templar Lord near-unstoppable.

She remembered how her mate and Baiken had been thrown down into the bowels of the Earth when Lucius executed a technique she had once seen Kliff Undersen use during the Crusades. Alone, the two had fought against Lucius, their every technique threatening to bring the roof of the chasm they had been cast into crashing down onto their heads. It had taken the Gear Commander more than an hour to get to her mate and the former PWAB assassin. When she found them, the antagonism between them had disappeared, replaced by something more…intimate. It had filled her with no small amount of wicked glee; she could smell the scent and seed of her mate on and within Baiken's body. And Dizzy knew that the latter hungered for more.

When Dizzy asked how her mate had defeated Lucius, the Japanese swordswoman had told her that Ky had unleashed his Limit Break. That had shocked the Gear Commander. Doing so was risky, for the Outrage Weapons would, if the bond between wielder and weapon was not strong enough, visit the same punishment on their masters as on their adversaries. The long annals of the Crusades were replete with such incidents, and death was more often than not the end result. Even those chosen by the weapon were not spared, though their chances of surviving were higher. But the Thunderseal, Dizzy had long ago learnt, had been Ky's weapon. It had waited for him across the long, cold decades in the Holy Order's Vaults, calling out to him and singing to him in his sleep. Its power was his to use. When awakened and unleashed, the White Knight of the Holy Order could cut mountains in two and defeat thousands of Gears in a single stroke. That same power was turned on Lucius, giving Baiken the chance she needed to deliver the killing blow to the corrupted Chapter Master.

A great blow had been dealt to the PWAB and its allies in that battle, but the Gear Commander knew that more needed to be done to bring the colossal edifice of an organization whose reach and schemes spanned the entire globe crashing down. And that battle was one that could be fought by those who had the resources to do so. Even demigods had their limits, after all.

**X X X**

Baiken pulled her pipe from under her kimono and a small box from her sash. It had been a while since her…itch was scratched, and the lovemaking she had engaged in the night before had sated her, at least for now. Her decision to go to the Vatican ahead of Ky Kiske was motivated by caution as much as desire to settle accounts with those whose transgressions had long ago earned her ire. It would amuse her to see the local constabulary and the PWAB agents run around in circles trying to find out just who had murdered such high-ranking officials and their families without being seen by their guards.

The swordswoman blew out a stream of fragrant smoke. It had been utterly satisfying to have ended the life of one Marcus Lucas Aurelius. A son of a powerful Italian family whose roots reached back to the early days of the Roman Empire, the merchant prince was one of the many highly-placed servants of the PWAB in the region. He was also the organization's voice within the Chambers of the Camarilla, and his patronage was one highly sought by many both within and outside it. By killing him and allowing the authorities to find evidence of both the transgressions of the Royalist faction and the PWAB, Baiken had put both parties in the spotlight.

The former assassin chuckled; every watering hole, restaurant, store and street corner in the Vatican had, in the aftermath of her hunt, become a place of congregation as the city's inhabitants gathered to discuss the sudden spate of murders and the skeletons that have fallen out of the closets of the rich and powerful. The sheer number of conspiracy theories, which ranged from the logical to the absurd, made for good conversation.

All in all, it had been a good week. The only thing that would make it better was if the meeting with Cardinal Lybrand went as planned and they leave before the authorities realized that four of the world's most sought after criminals had been hiding right under their very noses. Baiken paused briefly to study a small group of monster hunters who entered the inn. There were six of them in all, four men and two women. All of them were well-built and clad in rugged, durable clothing and wearing armor normally worn by the Holy Order's heavy infantry. More than half were armed with vicious chain-swords, repeater crossbows and powerful hunting rifles. The remainder carried ornate staves and heavy auto-pistols, indicating that these were rear-line fighters. Baiken's cerise eyes changed color briefly, and she could see the flow of mystical energies surrounding the latter. One, the quieter member of the group, radiated hoarfrost, indicating that he was an ice-mage. The woman, in contrast, was an extroverted braggart whose radiant aura indicated her preference for fire magic.

Baiken frowned, as memories of Japan's devastation by the Gears led by their creator arose from the shallow grave from which they were buried. She remembered the fires that consumed old Tokyo and the monsters that tore through it, slaughtering soldier and civilian in an orgy of destruction. She remembered dragons swooping down from above, their fiery breath and shrieks drowning out the sounds of a country in its death throes. For many years, the swordswoman did not understand how the powerful mystical wards that protected her homeland could have been circumvented. She believed that it had been the doing of her country's enemies, until a Chinese Dragon Warrior Exalt told her that the Gears had cast a powerful counter-spell, one that had crippled the protective enchantments of every major city in the region (which they then attacked). There was no doubt in anybody's mind that Japan had been the Destroyer of Heaven's main target; that the regional mystic defense grid had been taken down as well had been a bonus Justice's lieutenants had been swift to exploit.

Baiken blew out another stream of smoke; her clan had emerged from the Devastation relatively unscathed. Their unique abilities and gifts had been the bane of the Gears, all of whom soon regarded Japan as a death-trap which devoured their race and spat out their broken, bloodied remains. The Devastation had been the one and only time the Gears had ever attacked Japan; they refused to do so a second time. They knew that Death waited for them there, and all their vaunted strength and power could not parry the Ashen King's cold justice.

In the years after the Devastation, Japan committed as many of its soldiers and warrior-priests to the ranks of the UN Army as it could spare, taking the war to the _bakemono_ who had despoiled their lands. In return, the UN and the Holy Order would provide the necessary technology that would allow the country to rebuild. Given time, it would return to the one Baiken remembered in her memories. The sakura trees in her hometown would once again bloom in autumn and the snows would fall in winter, bringing with it snow and silence. And of long hours spent before the fireplace, nude and sated from hours of lovemaking, her more mischievous side added as an afterthought.

Baiken scowled inwardly. Had she been able to come face-to-face with her more devilish side, she would have beaten and strangled it within an inch of its miserable life. It did not help matters that said side was her ancestors' 'gift' to all their descendants. A sinful gift was a gift all the same, but it was plain…annoying when it made its demands.

"…and I heard back from when my team and I were hunting in the Empire that Lord Kiske had done quite a number on some of the _boyars_ there. The freaking Suzerain was pissed when she found out that some of them were trying to overthrow her. I don't know the whole story, but I heard rumors that the PWAB had had a hand in the whole affair."

Baiken immediately turned her attention to the conversation the hunters were having with a group of RUN soldiers who had most likely been deployed to the Vatican to bolster its security for the coming Christmas and New Year celebrations. Both Dizzy and Jam were likewise listening in.

"That wouldn't surprise me," one of the RUN soldiers said, "Way I see it, I think the PWAB wants to replace the UN. Hell, I can bet every dollar in my book that more than half the member states of the UN are in one way or another in the Bureau's pocket. Ever since Commander Kiske was put on the Red List, things have been getting from bad to worse. And if no one steps up to do something about it, I can promise you that we will be having a war with the Methuselah Empire three years from now."

"So it's true that the UN sent an Army Group to Illyria?"

"It is. And there are signs that the Illyrians are not going to take our annexation of their country lying down. There have already been several cases of our people getting killed in the line of duty. Illyria is full of men and women who are loyal to Commander Kiske. There were very badly offended when they heard that the UN and the Church put him on the Red List for fucking a Gear. And between you and me, I don't care if he did. The kid gave us everything," the soldier said, bitterness in his voice, "Everything. If this is how we reward our heroes, I think it would be better if I deserted. I signed up to defend humanity, not to die at the hands of its assholes."

"Hear, hear…" the soldier's compatriots echoed.

"There is also no doubt in my mind that we may be facing a full-fledged insurgency before long," the man continued, "Illyria's leaders want us gone, but the RUN Senate and the Vatican want a buffer state that will give the countries in Europe time to mobilize their armies should the Empire invade."

"That's bullshit," a female huntress said, "The Empire doesn't want a war."

"It don't matter what they want. What matter are what those war-mongering mad fucks in power want," the oldest soldier in the group, a man in his late forties replied. The scar on his faces writhing as he sneered, "The bureaucrats don't care about what happens to the Jacks and Janes on the ground. Whether we get shot, cut or torn to pieces or raped to death, they don't care. Commander Kiske is on the run, and the people who supported him are two steps away from joining him on the List. Had he been around, all this shit wouldn't have happened. Oh, bloody balls of Christ, is that Jeff…?" the bitter expression on the man's face faded as he raised a hand and called to the inn's newest customer, a much younger man in his mid-thirties wearing a coat with the emblem of the City Council on his breast pocket. Despite his profession, the Beast within Baiken saw the manner in which he moved – and the way the scarred soldier had spoken – was that of a predator. The man was a killer, and the fangs and claws that made him one had not been dulled despite the fact he had put aside his sword.

"Brother Johnson…?" the other man's eyes widened as he saw the one calling out to him. The grin that split his face washed away the frown on his face, before he walked over and gripped the other man's forearm.

"Damn it, to think you of all people would start wearing a suit. I expect to see a pig fly by anytime now."

"You missed it, brother," the soldier-turned-administrator laughed, "It flew past the Church when I got married."

Baiken saw the amused looks on the faces of both Dizzy and Jam. She raised a censorious eyebrow, only to be ignored. Dizzy stuck out her tongue.

"You, married? Damn! What's the lucky girl like? Spill, you idiot," the veteran grinned, "I want to know."

"Only if you buy me a drink at the Kashmir tonight," the ex-soldier replied, "You promised me a round from back when I pulled your sorry ass from the rubble the Blood-Edge made of your bunker. And another from when I beat you in the Circle…"

"You drive a hard bargain, Jeff. Deal!" the soldier, Johnson, said, as he invited his friend to sit down, "By the way, I saw the look on your face when you stepped in. What gives? The last time you had that look, the Vatican was on the verge of being fucked by Justice."

"Fucked is the right word for what is going to happen in the next few days," the soldier-turned-city administrator replied as he ordered breakfast from one of the waiters, "You might want to steel yourselves before I tell you what I just learned. Old Malt, who now works in Foreign Services, told me that one of the PWAB's top negotiators is in town, and she wants to petition the Legion Master of the Black Templars to send his troops both to the Crimea and Illyria. If that happens, I promise you that things will get seriously bad."

"Will that negotiator succeed?" one of the hunters asked.

"This negotiator was the same one who managed to get Zepp's Parliament to overrule President Gabriel and Prime Minister Potemkin in the putting the White Knight on the Red List, and persuaded Britain's isolationist Parliament to join the RUN. I will daresay that the chances of Archduke Lannister telling the PWAB to jump off the cliff – which I dearly hope he does – is fifty-fifty. Those damn PWAB Legates can convince God himself that Satan's rebellion was just."

Baiken closed her eyes. The former soldier's words struck closer to home than she liked. The PWAB's Legates were renowned not only for their charisma, but also for their ability to convince even their organization's most bitter enemy that aligning themselves with them was not only in their best interests, but in the best interests of those they protected. Ky Kiske had fallen prey to their manipulations when he set out to hunt down the Gear Commander who sat across the swordswoman.

And he was not the only one…

'_**Our goals are the same, Miss Baiken. We want the world to be a better place than the one we lived in and left behind. To make such a world possible, we ask that you be our sword. Yes, **__**we have many such individuals in our service. But you, Miss Baiken – you may well stand amongst the ranks of our elite. You may be able to do that which our finest cannot. I will not lie to you – the duty we ask you to perform is neither pleasant nor honorable. But in exchange, we will share with you information regarding the creator of the Gears – and grant your country the boon of our considerable knowledge to do with it as they will…"**_

Baiken lowered her head, allowing her dark pink bangs to cover her face. For a full year, the Japanese swordswoman had served the Bureau as their assassin, her blade ending the lives of those whose continued defiance threatened to return the world to that dark, bloody age when humanity stood on the brink of annihilation. Like the Nemean wolves that Justice had used during the Crusades to harry the armies of the UN and the Holy Order, Baiken had delighted in the hunt. Many of those she had murdered were men and women of power, knowledge and influence – all of whom had the common sense to hire bodyguards and to arm themselves with the best weapons that money could buy. But it availed them not; all that did was postpone the inevitable.

She remembered with shame the excitement she had felt when her masters within the Bureau had given her and a select group of its finest bounty hunters orders to kill Ky Kiske and to deliver his charge – who she later learnt was none other than Dizzy – into the hands of the PWAB's researchers. Here, the wrathful beast within her had whispered, was a man finally worth killing. Ky Kiske had few equals in combat. Alone and armed with the Outrage Weapon that had ended the lives of Gears whose might was second only to Justice's, he was more than capable of crushing a force many times that which the PWAB was sending against him. It was an irresistible challenge.

But Ky Kiske had comrades who refused to let him fight alone. The men and women who had stood beside him gave the White Knight of the Holy Order the power to crush armies and reduce mountains to ruin. It was an awesome sight to see the former Lord Commander of the Holy Order, clad in his blue and white robes and clutching his crackling sword, standing before them, flanked on either side by a voluptuous, blue-haired angel with dichromatic wings and a brown-haired Chinese woman who radiated power that made the earth and air roar. Four White Lion Knights, all veterans, all clad in the familiar white and crimson robes beneath glowing orichalum armor and hefting their halberds over their furred Nemean lion mantles and pointing machine pistols at them, shook their heads in amusement. Last, but not least, was the feared Master of Legions, who was on the UN's Top Thirty Most Wanted and on the PWAB's Red List. The wandering doctor, a former Knightly Order apothecary who was born in the Southeast Asian region, was accompanied by no less than five female Gears of the feared Blade Princess genus.

A hundred elite killers – all armed to the teeth and capable of leveling a UN military base with gun, blade and magic – had entered the Kiske manse. Only one would emerge alive, and that one would stand at death's door and be judged by the _kami_ and her ancestors for all the evil she had done. The last thing Baiken saw before darkness took her was Ky Kiske standing over her, blood staining his white and blue robes crimson, his crackling sword inches from her throat. When she came to, she had found herself on the _Scherazade_, the flagship of the Jellyfish Pirate fleet and watched over by Ky Kiske himself.

"_**The one reason**__** you and I are having this conversation, Miss Baiken, was because your friends in Japan interceded on your behalf. How on earth they managed to find out that you were part of the group that came to kill me, I do not know and, frankly, do not care. I am glad that I managed to end our battle without my taking your life. And believe me, that was no easy task. You are a monster, Miss Baiken, and the accounts of those who were fortunate to survive your hunting them lend credence to my calling you that. My duty demands that I turn you over to the IPF so that you will pay for your crimes. The likelihood that they will sentence you to death is high. But death will neither absolve you of your sins nor allow you to reach for that which you have almost sacrificed your humanity for.**_

"_**As such, I will sentence you in their place, Miss Baiken. Your punishment will be to live and to right every wrong you have done. You will make real the world you have bloodied your hands and your honor for. You will turn your blade against your former masters, for I shall reveal to you that which they have hidden from you…"**_

Would Cardinal Lybrand betray Ky Kiske to his enemies? Despite assurances by their contact that the priest was not in the pocket of the latter's enemies, the Japanese swordswoman could not help but worry. The PWAB was a greater threat that that Creator of the Gears had ever been. The unfathomable goals of the latter were achieved with means that were at least tempered with a sense of restraint and mercy. The PWAB went about achieving theirs with methods that were sorely lacking in either. Defeating them would be no easy task, as the Master of Legions had pointed out, but the information that Ky Kiske would surrender to the Cardinal would be the first step in turning the tide of the shadow war in the favor of those who opposed them.

Baiken's thoughts were derailed when lithe arms wrapped around her affectionately; impossibly strong arms that she knew belonged to a young, blue-haired half-Gear whose power equaled that of the _Kami_ themselves and whose life was the cross which Ky Kiske had taken up willingly. The swordswoman turned and smiled at her youngest sister, "Dizzy…?

"What is wrong, Baiken?" the female half-Gear replied, "You look troubled."

"I was just thinking about Kiske's meeting with the Cardinal."

"You fear treachery."

"Yes."

"Do not. I have taken precautions," Dizzy said, her eyes becoming that fearsome gold on blood-red sclera that reminded Baiken all too much of her clan's ancestor, "If there is even a chance that Cardinal Lybrand has betrayed him to our enemies, all three of us will be there by his side to teach him the error of his ways. Their God detests traitors. I do not forgive them. This city will not forgive them. Their resentment was stoked when those in power betrayed him. All that is needed is a spark, and vengeance shall come screaming for the mighty…"

The Gear Commander's eyes returned to its normal hue as her fury receded, "But let us not hide here. I want a chance to walk this city for one last time and buy as many souvenirs and clothes as I can."

"I second that," Jam raised her hand with a grin, before running her eyes over the robes the Gear Commander wore. Customized Holy Order robes, fit for a Canoness in both weave and design, but cut in a way that would scandalize even the most liberal in their number. The girls who had made the costume for Dizzy, both of whom were part of the Jellyfish Pirates, had found a legal (and extremely lucrative) avenue in which to make money for the group. No few women within the fleet had found themselves taking to the design, much to Johnny's chagrin. Jam chuckled; Johnny was a good-looking Casanova with an eye for the ladies and a tongue that could melt the heart of the hardest of them, but the snake pit he was in was one he desperately wanted to get out of.

Ky Kiske, Jam chuckled inwardly, was _pulled_ into the pit; the snakes inside wanted their way with him and would be not letting their prey out of aforementioned pit anytime soon. Jam's eyes drifted to the sword that was belted around the Gear Commander's waist. The force sword had been the Master of Legion's gift to the Gear Commander, master-crafted so as to allow the latter to direct and control the immense power that was her birthright. The force sword was made in the image of the Thunderseal, but the blade was several inches wider, and the color of its blade, hilt and cross-guard was not white and blue, but black and crimson.

"And I know a place in the Vatican where we can find what we are all looking for…" the Chinese martial artist added.

The Japanese swordswoman closed her eyes and hummed in agreement. Today was too good a day to remain indoors. She had long wanted a chance to see the city that had managed to break the mightiest Gear host to ever be assembled in the history of the Crusades. And it would be her last chance to do so. For when the sun sets, she and her companions would all be on the _Swift Herald_, bound for Japan, never to return. She would not have Ky Kiske spend the last years of his life on the run. None of them wanted that for a man who gave so much and was given so little in return.

Baiken's eyes snapped open when she felt the Gear Commander's hand trace a path from her clavicle, between her breasts and down to her lower belly, the gesture as arousing as it was affectionate. The latter had a happy smile on her face when she spoke, her voice not the musical one that Baiken had always known, but that of a woman fully grown, "I can feel them, Baiken…"

It took the better part of five minutes for the pink-haired swordswoman to digest what she had been told. She knew it would happen sooner rather than later. She had lain with the golden-haired ex-Holy Knight numerous times over the past year and a half. She knew that, sooner or later, that she would conceive. The Beast within her, the murderous legacy of a clan whom the Seishino family was part of, purred in joy as it turned its gaze at the sleeping soul in its embrace. White-hot pleasure that blazed through her veins told her of its intent: it wanted more.

The pink-haired swordswoman chuckled, and as she placed one callused hand over the Gear Commander's, "I know, Dizzy-_chan._ And thank you for telling me. It had been perplexing as to why…I have not bled for some time – and why I have felt so dizzy as of late. And before you ask, you minx," she fired an annoyed look at the smirking Chinese chef sitting across the table, "my home will be large enough to accommodate our brood."

The thought of the silent, dusty halls of the Seishino mansion being silent and empty no more made the swordswoman smile. No doubt, when she returned, her _sensei _and kinswoman (and one of her homeland's most beloved authors – especially where erotica was concerned) would be eager to hear everything that had transpired in the months after Baiken had left Japan. Baiken shuddered as the mental image of her plum-haired teacher and aunt, a playful leer on her lips, took shape in her mind. It was enough for Baiken to seriously consider asking her companions if they were amenable to spending some time in northern Japan before they headed to her family's estates in Fuyuki Shinto City. She really had no wish to be locked in a room with her teacher and be subjected to an interrogation that would give hardened Inquisitors nightmares.

**X X X**

_**The Grand Cross Citadel**_

_**At that very moment**_

The Grand Cross Citadel was a massive fortress built in the decades before the Fourth World War and had served as the nerve center of Holy Order-UN operations in the European theatre during the Crusades. Designed by the renowned magician-engineer Gerard van Housen, the Citadel was a masterpiece second only to the devastated strongholds that had once guarded Jerusalem and the Muslim holy land of Mecca. The walls of the Citadel were made of reinforced concrete and engraved with runes that could repel all but the most powerful mystical attack. Its battlements boasted, now as then, the same defenses that had bled the army that Justice had brought to destroy the Vatican white.

Ky Kiske, the former Lord Commander of the Holy Order and the revered hero of the Crusades, remembered a time when the Citadel's guns had rained death upon an enemy that knew neither fear nor surrender and whose might had broken the superpowers of a bygone era. It had been a sound that shook the earth, a declaration to a merciless adversary that those it sought to exterminate would not go quietly into the night.

The golden-haired ex-Holy Knight studied his surroundings. So much had changed. Back when he served as a senior inspector in the IPF, much of the neighborhood he stood in was still undergoing reconstruction. He ran one gloved hand on the wall of one of the buildings that had been restored, its original function of training and housing soldiers of the Order now dedicated to remembering them. Tourists milled around its entrance, listening to their guide tell them of what had taken place before, during and after the Siege of Rome. Said guide, the White Knight saw, was a veteran of the army he once led. The man, in his late forties and missing an arm and an eye, was clad in the white and crimson-lined robes of the Holy Order's Pistoliers regiment. His uniform, like the ornate fire-wand pistols in his holsters, the rank markings on his robe's mantle and the lovingly-restored regimental standard he held in his one strong arm, gleamed with pride. The last fluttered and whipped in the wind, carrying with it the faint scent of gun-smoke, blood and ruin.

Unable to stop himself, Ky Kiske pulled the hood of his cloak over his head and mingled with the crowd. He wanted to hear the man speak. It soon became clear to him that the older man was lost in his past. The voice that had shouted orders amidst the screams of dying men and earthshaking explosions held within them the weight of the bloodiest era in human history and of the lives that had been spent to bring it to an end.

The veteran told them of the campaigns he had fought in. He told them of the devastation he had seen in countries beyond counting and of cities being reduced to ghost- and corpse-haunted graveyards by the fury of the Gears. He painted a bleak picture of defeat and despair, of death and deprivation. He told them of fear and desperation, of the death of heroes and the triumphant shriek of a demigoddess whose dream was slowly coming to fruition. He told them of division within the halls of power, of men and women who clung to power and feasted while the world burned. He told them of a young man of twenty who was given the heavy mantle of leading the world's armies to victory, to do what his mighty predecessor could not. He told them the manner in which the embers of courage were fanned into an inferno, of faith renewed and of a thousand flags raised under the Treaty of the Blood Pact and of a billion swords and guns raised to the sky to honor that treaty.

Each story the man told dredged up memories veterans of the Crusade – himself included – would rather forget. But to do so was to betray those who had fought and died in the War, and such a thing could never be countenanced by those who lost kin and comrade in the War. And so he listened to the voices of the past and waited for the one who would give him and his companions a chance to live in the future.

It wasn't long before the Cardinal's messenger found him, and his eyes widened as he found himself looking into the face of a man he knew all too well. A man who was supposed to be in the Methuselah Empire helping the Suzerain root out the last members of the rebel faction that had plotted to overthrow her and start a new war with humanity. It was only when he saw the color of the man's eyes and the Daiklave that lay sheathed at his belt did he realize who the young man really was. The man before him was not Ibrahim Nanaya, the Master of Legions.

No, this young man was his son with the Gear Methuselah Scherazade (who Johnny had named his ship after, much to Ibrahim's annoyance). The latter had been the Master of Legion's greatest enemy during the Crusades. As such, the notion that the latter had lain with the former was ridiculous. Both would have taken poison rather than admit that they loved the other. It was ironic that the Messiah Project had done what Fate could not. It had married the flesh and blood of two bitter enemies who would have been more had the Crusades never been fought.

"Aleph," the White Knight nodded in greeting towards the younger man, "you look well."

"Master Kiske," the dark-haired young man bowed his head in return, "I am here by Cardinal Lybrand's command. Please come with me."

**X X X**

_**In a back alley, five minutes later…**_

Aleph had not come alone. There were six others with him, all armed. Four were women and two were men. Four of Aleph's companions wore the full-length robes, hoods and habits of the Holy Order's scholars and lore-keepers, and it was these that the Thunderseal turned its master's attentions to. The four were clearly Gears, none of whom were bound or commanded by the maiden whom the sword's master had made his mate. As such, they were a potential threat.

"I see you have made some interesting friends, Aleph," Ky asked as he rested one hand on his weapon, so as to calm the spirit that rested therein, "May I know their names?"

"Certainly, Master Kiske," the young man replied, and turned towards the curvaceous, dark-haired young woman who wore the uniform and cloak of the Holy Order's Outriders and carried its signature weapons: the HF saber, the Storm Eagle combat shotgun and the Defender heavy auto-pistol. The girl bowed to the White Knight in greeting before moving to Aleph's side.

"This," Aleph put a hand on the girl's shoulder, an intimate gesture of affection that was returned by the latter, "is Beth Amberlyn-Reindhart. She used to be part of Commander Lucia Boreas's North American Templar division until Lady Eliza reassigned her to..."

"Watch your back," the female Templar dug an elbow into Aleph's ribs, "It is an honor to meet you in person, Lord Kiske. I've heard a lot about you. My comrades in America asked me to send you their regards and salutations. Should you need us, give the word. We will return to fight by your side as we did all those years ago."

"I am honored that you and yours still consider me your commander after all that that has transpired, Dame Beth," Ky said, "But any war I will have you and yours persecute will be against an enemy neither blade nor gun can cut or kill."

"Nonetheless, our swords are yours should you need it."

"Thank you, Dame Beth."

Aleph turned towards a blonde-haired Eurasian woman who was leaning against a nearby wall. The latter was clad in the gleaming battle-plate of the White Panthers Knightly Order, whose chapter fortress – or rather, fortress-city – of Deus Incarnadine stood guard over the Spanish city of Cordoba. The markings on her armor and fur-lined cloak told Ky Kiske that the older woman was the commander of one the Knightly Order's Assault Companies. She was armed with an Enforcer heavy auto-pistol and a master-crafted power axe.

"This is Hiroko Tohno of the White Panthers Knightly Order," Aleph said, "Lady Eliza had her re-assigned to my team some weeks back."

"It is an honor to meet you, Miss Hiroko. I've heard a lot about you from your cousin," the White Knight said, even as details pertaining to Project Messiah rose to the forefront of his mind. The golden-haired female Templar, the cousin of the Master of Legions and the daughter of one of the Project's chief researchers, had been the cornerstone of Project Messiah. Her father had deliberately sabotaged the Project by choosing to implant the unborn son of his nephew and his archenemy within his daughter for reasons that would never be known.

Hiroko chuckled, the salacious gleam in her azure eyes giving the question she asked an underlying meaning, "How is my cousin?"

"He is well, Dame Hiroko," the golden-haired ex-Holy Knight replied, "He sends his regards and his apologies for being unable to meet you. He is helping me clean up a mess I made in the Empire. Do forgive him if he cannot make it back to Japan for the yearly family gathering."

"If he brings me," Hiroko coughed, "I mean, the family, gifts from the Empire, I would be inclined to overlook his trespass. And yes, I promise not to leave him unable to…perform. His Gear concubines would most likely not take kindly to my doing so."

The White Knight chuckled at that, before turning to look at the four robed figures, "And speaking of concubines, I see that you have inherited your father's taste in…exotic women, Aleph."

"The apple does not fall far from the tree, Master Kiske," Aleph replied gamely, "Like my father it took me no small amount of effort to persuade the Gears I have met on my travels to join me. Many were…" he cast a particularly dirty look at two of the robed Gears, who flinched under his scrutiny, "more interested in killing me than hearing what I had to say. The fact that I am a Holy Order agent does not endear me with those who remember our 'crimes' in the Crusades. I will not repeat what they called me so as not to offend your sensibilities."

"That bad…?"

The young paladin grimaced, "I'd daresay that some of them can swear better than sailors, and give voice to threats that would impress Satan himself."

"And I take it that the two you are glaring at are not the first to threaten you in such a fashion, Aleph?"

"God, no," Aleph replied, "There are a dozen others on my airship, all of whom are threatening that they will take it and put it square in St. Peter's Cathedral if I do not return to them by the appointed hour. I can ask for no better friends, but I am _**this**__," _the paladin raised one hand and indicated the narrow space between his forefinger and thumb, "close to asking God to deliver unto me an enemy that will not give me as bad a headache as my companions are prone to giving me."

Ky Kiske laughed then, a merry sound that made everyone in the alley smile despite themselves, "Do not ask for more woe than you can stomach, Sir Aleph. God is known to grant _**THAT**_ particular wish with a generous heart."

"Noted," the paladin replied, "Now, let us make haste, Master Kiske. Cardinal Lybrand awaits you at Via Fortis."

**X X X**

**The Central Market****,**

**Across the Ponte St. Angelo, 20 minutes later**

The Central Market was located across the _Castel St. Angelo_, the latter's towering edifice visible no matter where one stood in Rome. Built a hundred and thirty years after the birth of Christ, the Castle of Angels had originally served as the majestic tomb of a Roman Emperor until another had, in 271 A.D., converted it into a stronghold. The castle had served in the Middle Ages as the papal prison-stronghold where the enemies of the Church were imprisoned and where its leaders could find refuge in times of crisis. During the Renaissance, the Church authorities had ended the Castle of Angel's use as a prison and converted it fully into a papal domicile and refuge. In the chaotic years of the Third and Fourth World Wars, the Castle of Angels was one of the few places in the world where the leaders of the world could meet to resolve their differences. By that time, the ancient castle had been outfitted with some of the most advanced weapon and defensive systems that the world had to offer.

But even that had not been enough to turn back the Gears when they assailed its walls and tore down the Aegis Barriers that had protected the citadel. History – and the men and women who had been there – would remember the clash at the Castle of Angels as one of the most vicious melees to be fought in the 17-day long Siege of Rome. In one night alone, over two thousand UN and Holy Order soldiers had died trying to defeat eight hundred of her mother's elite guard. It had been a masterstroke that had nearly broken the back of her enemies and delivered the _caput mundi_ into the hands of its enemies. But it had been a masterstroke broken by the will of the city's defenders.

To honor that impossible victory, the Church had had commissioned the construction of the Fountain of Nike. Crafted by the hands and magic of master artisans and sculptors in etherite marble, the recently-completed fountain was a masterpiece of architecture and artistry. Symbols of courage and victory adorn it: eagles clutching thunderbolts and snarling serpents in their claws adorn the four cardinal corners of the fountain; lions standing atop the broken corpses of Gear hellhounds; heroes of the War, both living and dead, locked forever in battle against beautiful, mythical monsters whose sultry temptations saints and scripture have warned their flock to be wary of; and above them all were the men and women who had led humanity's armies in the century-long Crusades. Dizzy knew each and every one of the Thirteen Heavenly Generals by name and deed, but had ever only met two – and these stood near the top of the ten-meter high rocky outcropping where water flowed and created miniature waterfalls in the vast pool beneath.

These two – or rather, three, as it was fair to include Kliff Undersen among them – were the men who wrote the final chapters of a vicious hundred-year war. Her lover's predecessor had been resurrected in his prime and immortalized in stone, clad in ornate Order battle plate and clutching the fearsome Outrage Weapon her mother had called (rather aptly) the Dragonslayer. The weapon now rested deep within the Sacred Armory deep beneath the Grand Cross Citadel, waiting for a time when its power would be needed once more. A replica of the Dragonslayer was displayed within the Chambers Eternal, its presence a tribute to the mightiest hero of the Crusades. Next, with his back to Kliff Undersen, was her father, his powerful frame swathed in the robes of the Order. Sol Badguy, the Immoral Flame, the First Gear, one of the seven who had created a race whom they had hoped would be lover, companion and guide to an imperfect humanity, looked out at the world he loathed and loved in equal measure with a smirk that seemingly mocked the powers that be for their arrogance and hubris. Instead of the Grand Daiklave her father had wielded in the war, the sculptor had instead chiseled out the Outrage Weapon he had 'stolen' from the Order and which had had seen to Dizzy's lover pursuing him. She chuckled inwardly; there was no doubt in her mind that her father enjoyed making life difficult for his younger rival.

And last, standing at the top of the fountain, under the shadow of the massive, ornate cross that adorned the Cathedral of the Sanctified, was Ky Kiske. Dizzy shivered. The sculptor who had immortalized her beloved in stone had captured an expression the lovely Gear Commander had seen many times before. It bespoke of pain that would not dim and wounds that would never heal. In the lowered head and sword, in the unshed tears and a fist placed over a heart that knew the cost of victory, was a tribute paid to the countless thousands who have died in a long and bloody war and to the millions who were tasked with rebuilding a world ruined by the arrogance of their forebears. Dizzy raised one gloved hand to her lover's stone incarnation, so that she could see the latter between her fingers.

She closed her eyes, remembering a time when she had done so, when her mate had stood alone against his enemies, when his blood stained his robes crimson and when Death came for him, its pale shadow hovering over a soul promised to the Lords of the Underworld. It was in that one instant she understood why her mother had hated humanity so much and why her father had loathed the polity of the race he defended. Johnny had asked her, in the aftermath of the slaughter, what was it about humanity that Dizzy had hated, and she had told him. The pirate captain had been unable to refute that which she had accused humanity of. He had, instead, told her that the world did not matter. Only the people she loved did.

"_**Those who know, know they cannot write or speak of love or justice**__**.**_

_**One cannot know of God's will by tract and verse.**_

_**It is felt in the soul, that which is sought by many and found by few.**_

_**Wisdom is gained by experience; Love learned by pain;**_

_**Justice seen only in action and the future, yours to regain…"**_

Dizzy opened her eyes, the voice of the old couple who had raised her echoing in her ears. Inspiration struck her then, as she turned her attention back to the Fountain of Nike. She would have to speak to Captain Eckhart before they left the city. She wanted to make some…changes to the Fountain. The Gear Commander did not want her beloved to be remembered as a solitary individual, standing at its pinnacle, mourning those who waited for him in Valhalla. He deserved better than that. Those, the Gear Commander thought as she looked at the flowers, candles and tokens left around the Fountain, who loved him deserved better than that.

"Dizzy…?" Jam's voice broke the Gear Commander out of her thoughts, "Are you all right?"

"I'm all right, Jam," Dizzy replied, "It's just that…this is the first time I've been to the Vatican. I've heard about how beautiful it is, but seeing it firsthand is better than hearing about it from another…"

"That it is. Ky had brought me here once, when the Argent Crusaders Knightly Order challenged the edict of the Conclave some years back," the brown-haired Chinese chef replied, handing the half-Gear a large packet consisting of a large piece of sliced bread, lamb and vegetables, "Here, have one. It's _kebab_. I bought it from the Egyptian store. You'll need it. Especially since you are eating for two…"

"Three actually," the blue-haired half-Gear corrected her companion with a playful leer, "With more in mind…"

It took Jam some time to recover her jaw from where it had been, and even more for her to process what she had just heard. Two children…? Twins…?! And she was planning to have more? Gods, she hoped that Baiken's mansion was large and sturdy enough to accommodate the children of a demigoddess. There was no doubt in her mind that their horseplay would result in buildings being demolished, mountains being reduced to rubble and tidal waves being created. The Chinese martial artist shook her head to dispel the image, before scowling at the smirking, winged hussy before her. It would be a cold day in hell before she let Dizzy have her way.

Jam turned to look at Baiken. The pink-haired swordswoman had one eyebrow raised and an amused smile on her lips, but the fierce, predatory gleam in her cerise eyes face told Jam that the swordswoman shared her sentiments.

"Oh me oh my," a familiar voice caused the thought processes of all three women to come to a screeching halt and they turned as one to face the speaker, "What do we have here? A lost angel, an assassin and an orphan…? And they all look so delicious. My darling little Knight certainly knows where to pick up the best streetwalkers to warm his bed."

Standing with her back against one of the Fountain's pillars, clad in crimson and sin, was the woman whose machinations had cut the life of the revered Ky Kiske short: I-No of the Scarlet Ruin. A sensuous, predatory smile curved the witch's lips as she took in the horror and fury on the faces of the three women. She strummed her ever-present guitar, and licked her lips.

"But even so, I must say that I am by far the better choice…"

**X X X**

_**Grand Chapel, Via Fortis**_

_**Legion Fortress of the Howling Griffons**_

_**At that very moment**_

Cardinal Stephen Lybrand stood before the pulpit in the Grand Chapel of Via Fortis, the Legion fortress of the Howling Griffons Knightly Order, awaited the arrival of Ky Kiske. The man looked up at the painted glass frieze behind, honoring an impossible victory. Amidst the depictions of angels and a thunderbolt sundering a stairway, was the image of a young man with golden hair and a white-and-blue armored giant with a red mane. The Battle of the Stairway to Heaven was an apocalyptic confrontation which left thousands dead and the very ground torn asunder. Stephen had, during his time in the seminary, wondered if the authors of the Bible had imagined such a scene of devastation when they wrote Revelations. He had been there when the Stairway of Heaven collapsed, when the shockwave of its destruction was felt for miles around. Human or Gear, airship and tank, all were but chaff by the thunderous blast that shook the earth.

But that victory was made bitter by the knowledge that the Holy Order and the Combined Armed Forces of the United Nations had lost the best of their number trying to seal Justice. The Gear Commander had not gone quietly into her prison. She had smote her archenemy and his servants with everything she before the dimensional gates slammed shut. The Patriarch of the Bright Order, one of the eight Masters of the Schools of Sorcery, teleported the badly-wounded Ky Kiske from the crumbling Stairway with the last of his strength.

Even so, the excommunicated – and revered – Hero of the Crusades did not emerge from the confrontation unscathed. Power that could rend asunder Earth's greatest mountain had been used to smite the Destroyer of Heaven, and the instrument that had delivered the final blow had demanded a heavy price of its wielder. The healers of the Holy Order believed the injury the last blow of a spiteful enemy, but Stephen knew better. As he was a member of the Vatican's College of Cardinals, he was privy to knowledge that only a handful in the world knew about. His close ties with the Keeper of the Holy Forge saw to it that Stephen knew things about the Outrage Weapons that his peers did not. Chief among them was the fact that the Outrage Weapons were never meant to be wielded by normal humans. There was a price for power, and the spirits within the weapons ever thirsted for the life force of its wielders.

Thunderseal, the Sacred Sword of Ky Kiske, was one of the rare exceptions to the rule. The entity within the blade was selective of whom it allowed to wield it. In all the decades since its creation, only four had been granted that honor. Two were Christians, one was a Jew and the last was a Muslim. All had been members of the Holy Order. Its last wielder had carried it into battle for the better part of two decades before returning it to the Vatican upon his retirement. His warning was that no one else save the one the blade called for be allowed to wield it. The High Lords of the Holy Order and the College of Cardinals did not heed the man's warning. Thunderseal took the life of a Chapter Master in recompense and reduced those nearby to ash in a storm of lightning that blew a hole in the roof of the Sistine Chapel.

No one had dared to wield the Thunderseal after that. The Outrage Weapon would be sealed in the Vaults of the Grand Cross Citadel for the next twenty years. It was only when Ky Kiske took his oaths to the Holy Order did the sword wake from its long slumber. Cardinal Stephen would never forget the day when the Immoral Flame stormed into the Grand Sistine Chapel, the thunderous expression on his face causing even the Templars on duty to step aside, and tossed the Thunderseal into the arms of a startled Ky Kiske. The looks on the faces of everyone within the Chapel, especially after Sol Badguy told the younger man that the Outrage Weapon was his by right, was one Stephen would remember for the rest of his life. The Black Templars, in particular, had been infuriated. It went against the grain that a newly-initiated knight would receive an Outrage Weapon when decorated heroes older than he went into battle with inferior weapons.

The Cardinal sniffed in contempt. Had they known what he did, they would have had second thoughts at being granted the 'honor' of bearing an Outrage Weapon into battle. But even these were unaware that the deaths of many of their peers within the Legion came about because of another secret that Stephen's friend had shared with him. The secret, more damning than any the latter had told, was known only to a select few within the Church and the UN Senate. Many of the Outrage Weapons used in the Crusades were fakes. It had been the Immoral Flame who, with no small amount of disdain, had given the fake Outrage weapons the name they were now known by: Rusted Metallica – the Armaments of the Pretender. Though capable of inflicting horrific injuries on the Gears, the danger that came with wielding the Armaments of the Pretender was greater than if said individual was using a genuine Outrage Weapon. Madness and death awaited all those who could not bend the spirits within the Rusted Metallica to their will.

And death was what awaited Ky Kiske, his great reward for delivering humanity and Gear-kind from extinction.

Stephen closed his eyes. His father had told him many years ago, when the inferno of the Crusades devoured and spat out the broken remains of a hundred nations, that the war between humanity and the Gears was a blessing in disguise. Stephen, being young and heeding the words of those who sought to use all of humanity as a shield, had not understood the underlying meaning in his father's words. It was only now, decades later, having seen the depths humanity could sink to and the heights it could rise to, that Stephen finally understood. The letter his father had left him while

"**When the Serpent led the First Ones into eating of the Tree of Knowledge,**

**Her malicious intent to lay humanity low granted it the knowledge of evil.**

**Some believed that the Serpent wanted nothing more than to free humanity;**

**Though we are God's most beloved creation, we are little more than His slaves in the Serpent's eyes.**

**We will never know.**

**What we do know, is that the gift given by the Serpent, was poisoned.**

**Humanity, the object of envy of God's immortal sons and daughters, was cast out.**

**Paradise was forever barred to them.**

**Bitter is the toll paid to all who partook in treachery for reasons base or noble."**

The Gears were no longer the threat they once were. Many within the Church and the UN regarded them as a defeated enemy who would never again pose a threat. The new Gear Commander, unlike her predecessor, was a gentle soul who wanted nothing more than to live in peace with her mate. But that wish mattered little to those who desired her power. Among them was Cardinal Alessandro, a high-ranking member of the Purist faction. The eldest son of a powerful Italian merchant prince, the younger man had ambitions that were as daring as they were dangerous. Determined to ensure that the Church would never again be relegated to a position of impotence in worldly affairs, Alessandro wanted to create a theocratic supra-state that would encompass all of Europe, Russia and the Middle East. The vision appealed to both the hawks in the RUN, who saw it as a chance to unite the fractured world under a single banner once and for all, as well as the powerful hardliners within Rome, who saw it as a chance to create the Millennial Kingdom that was spoken of in the Bible.

And the key to his dream – no, to the dreams of petty kings and would-be tyrants the world over – was the daughter of Justice, the Gear Commander known as Dizzy. Stephen turned to look at the magnificent fountain that dominated the transept of the church, the marble likenesses of the Howling Griffons' founders gleaming in the light of the midday sun, their swords raised in salute to the ghosts of thousands who now rested in Paradise. They had to be stopped. Should the aspiring dictators within humanity and Gear-kind succeed in their endeavor to capture and enslave the young Gear Commander, one could count the years before the Apocalypse that Ky Kiske had barely averted cast its bloody shadow once more over the world.

'_You will not succeed, Alessandro,' _the old Cardinal swore, _'I will do whatever it takes to stop you. You and those like you.__ For all your strengths, you do not comprehend the one truth of the world: there are monsters in this world whose wrath would make our Lord's fury pale in comparison. You have set hounds on their master's heels, brother, but unleashed wolves on yours.'_

"Captain Duran," the Cardinal turned to face his bodyguard, an agent of Vigilance who had been assigned to him by Cardinal Eliza Beowulf, whom many within the Vatican had called the Left Hand of God, "has Aleph arrived yet?"

"Not yet, Holiness," the blonde-haired man replied, "Please be patient. If word gets out that Lord Kiske is within the Vatican, there is no telling what might happen. I would like to avoid having to fight those we consider our brothers and sisters if we can. "

"That might be unavoidable if what Aleph told us was true, Brother Duran," Stephen replied, "I still cannot believe that Alessandro would go as far as he had. I know he desired power, but this…? Just what madness has taken hold of him that he would conduct those experiments? If the RUN Security Council or the IPF find out, there would be hell to pay…!"

The Paladin of Vigilance agreed with his superior's assessment. The RUN Senate viewed the Church with no small amount of suspicion. Many in the former knew that the hardliners in the latter wanted them gone. The Messiah, Ascendancy and Argent King Projects were a step in that direction. The first was to create a leader – one that was subservient to the wishes of the religious elite – that would rally the faithful behind the Church. The second was to create a bio-weapon that would purge humanity of all who bore within their veins the unclean heritage of the Gear race. Last, but not least, the Argent King project was to create an invincible army that would allow the Church to impose its will upon the nations under its rule. These would serve as the Honor Guard of the Son of God when He arrived on Earth. The bloody confrontation written in the Bible and the Dead Sea Scrolls would never come to pass, for God's servants on Earth had crushed the infidel and the servants of Satan before their corruption could fully flower.

Duran drew in a deep breath to calm himself. Rash actions made for failed plans. And neither Vigilance nor its allies could afford a single misstep, not when their enemies were as formidable as the ones arrayed against them.

"Is war unavoidable then, Lord Stephen?" the paladin asked.

"It is," the older man replied, "Many are those entranced with the glory of Babylon, and all seek to drink from the poisoned cup the Whore proffers. But her duty is to seek out the weak and the wicked, and lead them down damnation's road so that the Adversary may have his due."

"And Lord Kiske…?"

Stephen smiled, a rare twinkle coming to his eyes, "For him, the reward God grants unto the worthiest of souls. I pray that he has the strength to endure the test to come. The temptations of Babylon itself might not be enough to quiet his libido, if the stories I hear from Sir Johnny are true."

Duran tried to keep a straight face. His subordinates did not do so well.

**X X X**

_**The Grand Market**__**…**_

The reaction of all three women to the appearance of I-No was both instantaneous and hostile. Both Baiken and Dizzy reached for their respective blades, the latter fortunately having the presence of mind to not call upon her powers and sending the scantily-clad witch across the Styx. Jam had taken a fighting stance, her brown eyes all cold and hard. The Chinese martial artist had lost count of the number of times the musician had manipulated her lover into carrying out missions that put him in danger or saw to him almost killing those he care about.

The scream Jam heard that day in the ruins of the Chinese trade-city of Yong-Shen was one burnt into her memory, one that captured in its entirety the torment and anguish that the Fates could visit upon those who least deserved it. If she could inflict but a fraction of the pain that her lover had suffered then on the sultry witch before her, the Chinese martial artist would gladly give her life to see it done.

As if aware of her intent, I-No turned to look at Jam, her lips curved in a smirk that dared the latter to try and kill her. It would displease her master considerably to learn that his designs had been thwarted, but his wrath was something the red-clad musician was all too willing to risk if it would allow her to make the White Knight her plaything once more. Or, was it the other way round…? She did not mind, really. I-No remembered how the golden-haired paladin had forced himself on her all those years ago. She remembered the mad fury and the lust in his eyes as he violated her. She remembered the earthshaking orgasms as her body, upon finding out that Ky Kiske's genes were compatible with her own, turned on her. It had taken the witch all of her willpower to prevent herself from getting pregnant, but the sheer rapture that had nearly driven her mad was motivation enough for the musician to want to tempt the Fates once more.

"What are you doing here, slut?" Baiken's voice was cold with the promise of a bloody death, "Are you here to finish what you started?"

"Lose it, bitch," I-No's green eyes moved from Jam to the pink-haired swordswoman, "And I promise you that no one in this plaza walks away without losing an arm, a leg or a life. He…" the witch gave Baiken a knowing look, "made it perfectly clear that I was not to give this sanctified shit-hole a facelift or to turn you, the chipmunk or the bird into corpses I can fist-fuck. I am, if you can believe it, here as insurance should Holy Boy's meeting with the Cardinal go sideways. As to how I know, that's none of your business. Also…" I-No raised one hand and her hat spat out a small bottle into it, which she promptly tossed to Baiken, "my master asks that you give this to the idiot. It will…help delay the end."

Baiken recognized what she held in her hand immediately. She had been given a similar bottle once before by her handler within the PWAB as a reward for her killing a prominent RUN Senator whose policies had given the organization no small amount of grief. The red pills within the bottle were ones that only the very rich could afford: crystallized Dragon's Blood. Each tablet was capable of curing any disease or injury, no matter how fatal either may be.

"Why would your master want to help one who has long been a thorn in his side?" Baiken asked the red-clad witch.

"Because my master sees himself in Little Ky," I-No replied, "The two of them have a lot in common, you know. My master has no wish to see the world returned to the days before the Crusades. Little Ky does not want the world to become the personal fuck-toy of the pigs in power. The fact that he is here, in the lion's den, shows that he is serious about crashing their party."

"And you?"

"Me? My reasons are simple. I like Little Ky. He excites me. Everything he does, everywhere he goes, the kind of people he fucks up and with," I-No grinned, "It can make a girl wet. He's the kind of man who can take a throne and keep it. Had he taken up the mission to investigate what was going on in Ireland instead of going to Egypt, he would have become a King. Had he been so, they," the scantily-clad witch jerked her head in the direction of the Grand Cross Citadel, where the rich and powerful would gather to celebrate the New Year in a week's time, "would never have dared raise a hand against him without risking the wrath of both the Kingdom and the Empire. But Little Ky has made his choice. He chose to be free."

_**To be continued**__**…**_

**Afterword:**

I had originally planned for this story to be completed in one chapter, but see that that is no longer possible. Had I continued, the flow of the story would suffer and I would have found myself lacking a foot and a head. And quite possibly, the rest of me as my readers and reviewers would have broken out the shotguns and chain-blades. And so, I will follow what my Creative Writing teacher had taught me: if you cannot kill the story in one chapter, kill it in two.

Regardless, I will ask you, my readers, how my current attempt at erotica has gone. Is the flow of the story good? Did I set the temperature right? Did I do better than my previous attempts? I have noticed that in my attempts to write erotica (or any other story, for that matter), I tend to focus more on the story than the sex.

**Glossary (A-Z): **

**Aegis Barriers: **Aegis Barriers are protective energy or magical shields that protect military or governmental installations. These are powered either by fusion generators or mystic engines.

**Airships: **Airships replaced aeroplanes and ships in the decades after the Third World War. Originally, they were powered by light fusion reactors, but these were soon replaced by mana furnaces – which is far safer and whose power output exceeds the fusion reactor at maximum power by about three times. Airships come in a variety of designs and are used both for commerce and war. The most formidable of these are the _Unconquered Rising Sun -_class battleship, which combines the power of a flying battleship and the capability to teleport troops and heavy armour straight into a battlefield.

**Argent King Project, The: **The Argent King Project is a top-secret joint-project of the Vatican hardliner faction and the nobles of the Royalist House. Its main purpose was to create a powerful army for the Glorious King to lead, one that would be loyal to him (and through him, the Church and the nobles of the Royalists faction). It was carried out at the same time as Project Messiah and Project Ascendancy.

**Assassins' Guild: **Led by the powerful Gear-Methuselah known as Slayer, the Assassins' Guild is one of the most powerful organizations in the underworld. Its members wield advanced weaponry and have access to technology and mystic rituals that enhance their already considerable skills. Slayer, for all his criminal leanings, is loyal to the Methuselah Empire and will take independent action against those whom he deems a threat to its ruler and the Empire.

**Black Templars, The: **The Black Templars Knightly Order is easily the largest of the Vatican's Templar Army, boasting well over a million soldiers. Its emblem is the Black Maltese Cross over a white background. The Knightly Order (though many regard it as a Legion, considering the numbers), divided into Chapters, are led by Legion Master Frederick Lannister.

**Crusades, The: **The Crusades is a century-long (though some say it is longer) war between the humans and their creations, the Gears. On one side are the Holy Order and the United Nations, on the other, the Gear Legions (which can resemble a vast horde that would make the Mongols have nightmares, or disciplined ranks that would make the Greeks and Romans weep).

**Chambers of the Camarilla: **The Chambers of the Camarilla are where the nobles of the Royalist faction gather to do business and seal alliances. Duels of honour between its members are fought within its halls, as the highborn do not wish to air their dirty laundry to their inferiors. Imagine a gathering of the ruling elite and the rich in the most exclusive location in the world, add a (big) dash of decadence and oldworld splendour, and you will see in your mind the Chambers of the Camarilla. Do you wish to join?

**Daiklaves: **Powerful weapons created in the Soul Forges and during a time when the stars are right. Doing so grants them more power than normal (such as being able to affect the elements or negating the powerful regenerative abilities of certain Gear types); otherwise, they will grants enhanced strength, speed, fortitude and magical resistance. Most Daiklaves take the shape of swords. (**Author's Note**: Here is where I will point you in the direction of White Wolf's Exalted and the myriad Charms and weaponry used by demigod-heroes worthy of the name – use it to the fullest extent of thy wicked glee.)

**Gears: **The Gears are the crowning jewel of a 15-year long endeavour in which a group of seven scientists, magi, geneticists and tech-priests which changes forever the face of the world. Inspired by stories, myths and games created by their forebears, the Seven Makers – as the Gears would call their human creators – breathe life and soul into mythical races and creatures beyond counting. The original intent of the Seven was to craft for humanity lovers, teachers and companions to steer it from the ruinous road it had trod for centuries. The road to hell is paved with good intentions, and the works of the Seven are soon twisted beyond all recognition…

**Heart of Creation, The: **The Heart of Creation is the vast reservoir of energy that underlies all of Creation. It is from this place that magic – the unlimited energy resource that had brought the world into a golden age that will never be seen again – flows.

**Holy Order, The: **The Holy Order describes the military arm of the Vatican. It comprises of three branches: the Knightly Orders, the Inquisition and the White Fleet (which are the Church's Navy). As the Crusades ground on, the Holy Order came to encompass the followers of both Islam and Judaism, both of were very sore at losing the Holy Land and who had suffered staggering losses to the Gears.

**International Police Force (IPF) & Interpol: **The International Police Force is the armoured fist of Interpol. Where the rank-and-file agents of Interpol are tasked with investigation and the capture of criminals, the IPF is tasked with taking down those whose crimes are particularly severe. It is said by many in the underworld that being caught by Interpol is better than being in the gun-sights of the IPF. The former will take you alive; the latter is sent when the authorities have declared you a threat.

**Justice, Gear Commander: **Justice – known better by her sobriquets the Alabaster Serpent of Judgment and the Destroyer of Heaven (in the Asian region) – is the first Gear Commander to be created. The original intent had been to create a failsafe to ensure that the Gears will never rise up against humanity. The project was a great success. For many years, Justice carried out the task she was made for, until one of the Seven Makers – the last of two surviving – broke the wards and seals that kept the Commander Gear pacified. Justice's wrath as she learns about how the humans have treated the Gears would put God's to shame. She launches the Gear Uprising and utterly decimates the Asian region and plunges much of Europe, America and Africa into a bloody war.

**Jellyfish Pirates, The: **One of the many pirate groups in the world. The Jellyfish Pirates are led by Johnny Sfondi. Its flagship is the _Scherazade, _a heavy airship armed with military-grade weapons and pre-Crusade technology.

**Methuselah Empire, The: **Based off the Trinity Blood anime and manga. Its capital state is Turkey, and the Empire encompasses the entire Middle East (which was once Gear territory) as well as northern India and Afghanistan. The Empire is the homeland of the Gears, a dream that the best of humanity and Gear-kind have longed for and have laboured hard to make into reality. Ruled by the Suzerain, a Methuselah Shinso of immense power, the Empire is a prosperous and technologically-advanced country. The UN and the PWAB view the Empire with no small amount of suspicion. The powerful hard-line faction in the Vatican, on the other hand, wants to destroy it.

**Office of Internal Security (OIS), United Nations: **The feared Office of Internal Security is responsible for tracking down and eliminating any threats to humanity. Agents of the OIS often work with the IPF and the Inquisition to check the growing power of the underworld. It is a truism that when the OIS come into the picture, one can be guaranteed a place in a place in one of its impregnable gulags or a grave (which many say IS the better option).

**Outrage Weapons, The: **The Outrage Weapons are the pinnacle of anti-Gear weaponry. Capable of dealing horrific wounds and crushing even the strongest of the Gears in a single blow, these mystical weapons are the most powerful creations of the Soul Forges. Sol Badguy and his compatriots created a thousand such weapons. More than half were given to the Church and their allies. The rest were divided amongst the various countries of the UN. In the decades after the Gear Uprising, the RUN and the Church attempted to create false Outrage Weapons (which Sol calls Rusted Metallica). Though powerful, wielding them was a risky endeavour. You could die, go mad or turn to dust the minute the battle ends. But it is a sacrifice and the risk soldiers and their superiors were willing to take, especially in a war where defeat means the human race gets blasted into extinction.

**Principia Magicus: **Latin, _Principles of Magic._ Theories and treatises regarding magic and how to harness it (safely) are compiled into numerous books that allow individuals, countries and companies the world over to exploit a potent and inexhaustible resource. Said theories also led to the creation of powerful mystical weapons and the creation of the Gears.

**Post-War Administration Bureau (PWAB): **A powerful international organization aligned with Reconstituted United Nations (RUN) dedicated, at least outwardly, to restoring the world in the aftermath of the Crusades. In truth, its members wish to be the world's new masters. By means both fair and foul, the PWAB secures and cements its grip on power. Its ranks are replete with the rich and powerful, all of whom wish to remake the world into something more pleasing to their eyes.

**Project Ascendancy: **Project Ascendancy was the Vatican hardliner faction's top-secret bio-weapons project, meant to purge humanity of those who had Gear blood within them (which was essentially more than 40% of the world's surviving population). Project Ascendancy, like Project Messiah and the Argent King Project, was headed by Cardinal Alessandro Clemente.

**Project Messiah: **Project Messiah was to create a leader behind whom humanity could rally behind. Having finally returned to a position of power and influence, many within the Church had no wish to be relegated back to its pre-Crusade status. The efforts of the Holy Order scientists and tech-priests bore fruit: they managed to create the Glorious King spoken of in the Bible, and companions to guard and guide him. But three amongst them betrayed their peers, and sabotaged the Project to a degree that (if discovered) would sow the seeds of a Second Hierophant War. These men saw to it that the King and his companions would be born free and not a servant of his creators. The name of that Glorious King is Aleph, and the one who held him within her body was Hiroko Tohno of the White Panthers Knightly Order. It was a decision with far-reaching ramifications, as the surrogate mother of the Glorious King has ties to the Hundred Clans….

**Reconstituted United Nations (RUN): **The Reconstituted United Nations are formed of member states which have survived the Fourth World War and the Gear Uprising. They are the successor organisation of the United Nations. Though powerful, its influence is severely undermined by the PWAB, due to the fact that the latter has access to technology and resources that the RUN does not have.

**Rusted Metallica: **as known asThe Armaments of the Pretender. See the Outrage Weapons, above.

**Seven Makers, The: **The Seven Makers are the creators of the Gear race. All are immensely powerful individuals capable of destroying cities and defeating entire armies. Five of the seven have either disappeared or been assassinated by parties unknown. The only two known Makers are Sol Badguy and the Man, who conspiracy theorists believe is the ancestor of Ky Kiske.

**Soul Forge: **The Soul Forge is – was – the source of many mystical weapons and armour worn by humans and Gears before, during and after the Crusades. Each Soul Forge is guarded by an Order of Tech-priests, who guard the rituals and incantations which allow them to create their signature weapons. For example, the Soul Forge of the Eagle in America and the Eternal Queen Soul Forge in Britain were known to craft fire-wand pistols, but the manner in which the incantations and rites were applied to create said weapon are different (and to alter the fundamental blueprints of said rites requires YEARS of study and experimentation before the High Priest or Priestess of the Order considered it safe enough for regular use; a failure means the Soul Forge and everything within forty miles goes up in smoke). Specialized Soul Forges also create WMDs such as the Thousand-Forged Dragons and the Tidal Rising Dragons.

**Soul Forge, Corrupted: **The Corrupted Soul Forges are the unholy counterparts of the Soul Forge. Where the latter draws its power from the Heart of Creation, the former draws it from the depths of the underworld, lending whatever weapons that are created powers which are forbidden by international treaty. But when such power is there for the taking, there are those who will desire to harness it for reasons both base and noble. The Corrupted Soul Forges are top-secret facilities, the knowledge of which will most assuredly see to an individual or organization imprisoned or executed.

**United Nations Combined Armed Forces (UN-CAF): **This is the rank and file for the armies of humanity during the Crusades. Their way of warfare is – unlike the Holy Order which makes extensive use of magic in battle – conventional. They make use of tried and tested military hardware. The medical branch of the UN-CAF, however, takes full advantage of the unmatched healing Charms created decades prior; restoring a man who can return to battle in 14 days is better than seeing him downed for over three months. And during the Crusades, you need every soldier you can get.

**Vigilance: **Vigilance is an organization within the Church whose original mandate was to police its ranks and root out corruption. Lady Cardinal Eliza Beowulf, known by many in the Vatican as the Left Hand of God, created the organization some twelve years before the end of the Crusades. In the aftermath of the Crusades, Vigilance was granted broader powers and made a part of Interpol.

**Wyld Hunt: **The term was coined by the Holy Order when its kill-teams set out to hunt down and kill powerful Gears during the bloody years of the Crusades. For someone to be chosen as a member of a Wyld Hunt kill-team is a great honour in the ranks of the both the UN and Holy Order armies. It was adopted by the Post-War Administration Bureau as a means by which they would hunt down those whose continued existence posed a threat to the PWAB.


	2. Chapter 2

**_Guilty Gear: When the Sun sets…_**

**_Chapter 2: Crossing the Rubicon_**

**_Written by Spiritblade_**

**_Disclaimer: _**This is another one of my practice attempts at perfecting the erotic genre, and I'm venturing into Guilty Gear for this. As everyone knows, Guilty Gear belongs to Daisuke Ishiwatari. I'm only borrowing the characters of the game for my own (perverted?) ends and to improve my mastery of the more…interesting genre (which comes harder to me than most). Now, on to the story – let me see if I can surpass myself. Also, I will be taking certain liberties in writing this story, so I hope I will be excused for this. This story will have ties to my GSD project, at least in regards to what had transpired in its distant past before the Cosmic Era dawned.

Be forewarned, though, I married White Wolf's Exalted (and a bit of Warhammer 40K) to this story, as the artefacts mentioned within the former fits the era in which the Crusades (and the decades prior) took place. Before human civilisation falls into ruin, it must have somewhere to fall from – and what better than when it **ALMOST** manages to recapture the glory of an era we remember in dream and soul-memory?

Oh, and guys, I already have a full-time job. Any updates to my projects will be slow in the coming. My line of work is renowned for leaving me out of gas by the time I'm done (but isn't that true for everyone?). Do leave a review or two (as well as suggestions and ideas) – it's a morale booster (both for me and the other writers on the site).

**Author's Note – Please read before continuing onwards: **Take note that this is a third draft of the original chapter. I read through my previous draft after a reviewer passed on some advice, and decided it was prudent to make some changes. A simpler story, flowing easily, is one remembered better. Also, I have made some...changes to the first chapter, so please take a look at it as well.

**Draft Posted on 7/4/2015**

**(O)**

**_The Central Market,_**

**_Across the _****Ponte St. Angelo**

**_23rd December 2146 A.D._**

Jam Kuradoberi remembered the first time she had met Ky Kiske. It had been a bright afternoon in the port-city of Qingdao and the streets had been full of people going about their business. Her restaurant, like many of the city's eateries and restaurants at that hour, had been packed full of customers looking to have their afternoon meals. City official and dock worker, constable and criminal, all had come to the Nine Clouds Restaurant hoping to taste its owner's cooking and to catch a glimpse of the woman whom many had described to be the next Cheng-Yu, the master chef whose culinary skills and intellect had won him the hand of the eldest daughter of the late Dragon Emperor.

Like the legendary chef, Jam had been courted by one who stood far above her. But unlike him, who had known his future wife since childhood and had grown to love her, the brown-haired chef-cum-martial artist had nothing but disdain for her would-be suitor. His name was Liu Shen-Dao, and he was the youngest son of a powerful Dragon-Blooded family. He was a wastrel whose lecherous ways and arrogance had brought shame upon a clan whose members had bled and died trying to restore a world brought to ruin by the ambitions and hubris of their ancestors.

Like many within the province, Jam had wondered why the Shen-Dao clan elders had tolerated the excesses of its youngest scion, when others had suffered fates far worse for less. Some believed that it was because the young noble had the ear of the heir-apparent to the Dragon Throne. Others said that his outrageous behaviour was a façade meant to conceal the fact that he was the head of the Shen-Dao clan's intelligence apparatus – something who knew the young noble well scoffed at. The most plausible explanation, one that was eventually accepted by many within and outside the province, was that the young noble was perhaps one of the most gifted students the masters of the Tower of the Five Winds – where China's Battlemages were trained – had seen in a generation.

It was the young noble's aptitude with Charms and medicine as well as the slowly declining health and sanity of the revered Shen-Dao patriarch that would draw the attentions of those who sought to counter the PWAB's growing influence in Asia. Among them – and the first to arrive in the Middle Kingdom – was a man whose name was known throughout the world, and whose leadership had allowed humanity to win an impossible victory. A man who, as the Chief Superintendent of the IPF, had made every corrupt bureaucrat beg for mercy and underworld figures do the same for their lives.

Jam had learned of the Ky Kiske's exploits from merchants who had arrived from the west via the Intercontinental Mag-Lev as well as the Crusade veterans who had made Qingdao City their home. She had always brushed them off as mere exaggerations. Within minutes of the paladin taking a seat in her restaurant and ordering a meal, the Chinese martial artist would learn that all the lies she had been told were true.

Mechanical warriors, made in the image of the hero they had been sent to kill, descended on her shop like steel locusts and proceeded to level her restaurant, injure her employees and turn the entire district into a battleground. It did not take long for the city's ex-Crusaders to, upon hearing that their commander was in the city and fighting against an unknown enemy, descend upon the district. Clad in uniforms and wielding weapons that had not seen the light of day since the end of the war against the Gears, they were the very stories they told made real. Their battle-cries had been deafening and their vigour belying the wounds they had suffered and the years that had made them shadows of their former selves.

No one would ever forget that day. No one wanted to. The songs the men and women sang were alien to many in Qingdao. No one knew what they meant, but the meaning in them resonated in those who remembered that there were some things that were greater than death and which made men great. The jaded and the cynical may pour scorn upon them but Jam Kuradoberi would never number herself among them.

The image of Ky Kiske, surrounded by men and women who had proven themselves a hundred times over on as many battlefields long before either of them had been born, their weapons and fists raised to the skies in salute to the young man who had led them to victory, was one seared into Jam's memories. On that day, beneath storm-dark skies, pride and glory stopped being words. They became as real as those who gave it meaning. And in that moment, as the rain fell and lightning illuminated the heavens, Jam Kuradoberi fell in love.

Liu Shen-Dao had not taken her falling for Ky Kiske well. He had gone over to her road-side stall, which she and her employees had set up after the attack had demolished her restaurant, and demanded to know why she had chosen a foreign barbarian over him. What could the White Knight offer that he could not? How did his accomplishments compare to that of a clan that had served the Dragon Throne for over three centuries? Was Jam aware that it was because of the White Knight that much of Asia was now in ruins? That it was because of his blunders that thousands have died and entire cities have been destroyed?

Whatever anger Jam had felt for the noble wilted there and then. She had been there when the Destroyer of Heaven sent a massive Gear army into Asia. Millions-strong, they had been beyond the ability of the countries in the region to stop. Cities had been burned, and countless thousands had been slaughtered. She remembered the broken sobs of orphaned children and the pain-filled moans of the injured. She remembered the fire-pits where the dead had been burned and the long columns of refugees as they fled their homes. She remembered the grim looks on the faces of those soldiers who were sent to stop the invasion.

Was it true? Had Ky Kiske's blunders been the reason why so many had died?

The answer would come straight from the mouth of a man who knew Ky Kiske better than she did: Sol Badguy, the Red Dragon of the Holy Order. The powerfully built, brown-haired swordsman had arrived in Qingdao City some two weeks after his rival had. The former had apparently received a message from the latter, the contents of which had left Sol Badguy in a towering fury. That fury reached new heights when she asked the swordsman if what Liu had told her about Ky Kiske was true.

She would learn that, despite their rivalry, Sol Badguy and her lover had more in common that either would care to admit. Both wanted to keep the world safe. Both wanted to make it a better place than the one either had lived in. Both had scars aplenty from wrongs they could not right. The Red Dragon told her that he had been part of the twenty-thousand strong force that Ky Kiske had assembled in the aftermath of the Siege of Rome to buy Asia time to muster its armies and ready its defences.

Both veterans of the Crusades and the politicians in the UN had called the operation a suicide mission. What good could twenty thousand men and a hundred airships do against a Hive Fleet? Many had called for Ky Kiske to be relieved of his rank, believing that the trauma of losing his mentor and so many men and women in the days leading up to the Siege of Rome had unhinged his mind. When the Retribution Force returned after twenty-seven days of bitter fighting, it had accomplished what it had set out to do.

It bought Asia time. Many had argued that the three days won at the price of well-over fourteen thousand lives was barely enough to evacuate and fortify those cities in the path of Hive Fleet Kraken. Jam was of the other opinion. The full might of the West could barely stop Hive Fleet Behemoth. That twenty-thousand could buy Asia three days was amazing in and of itself. But the cost had been high. The Red Dragon's words and the haunted gaze in his eyes spoke volumes of the hardship and losses that the Retribution Force had endured, and the scars she had seen on her lover's body when they first made love lent weight to accounts of how he had almost fought himself into an early grave.

In the tender aftermath, Ky Kiske would tell her things that her teachers had never told her about. The latter had told her of a glorious time when humanity discovered the limitless energy source that would bring an end to two and a half centuries of strife. They would tell her of a time when the Middle Kingdom stood amongst the world's superpowers, its economic and military might the envy of its long-time political adversaries in both Asia and the West. They would tell her of the creation of the Gears and of events that would ignite the inferno of the Fourth World War.

What they did not tell her was the truth. Records that had survived the Fourth World War told of atrocities that have been committed by China as she raised herself to heights its past leaders and Emperors could only dream of. The Middle Kingdom was merciless in the persecution of those it saw as enemies of the state, and hundreds were executed or sent to work camps. They did not tell her of the weapons China had used on its enemies; weapons that were more devastating than the nuclear weapons that had once been the cornerstone of the armies of the superpowers of yesteryear.

Words like the Thousand-Forged Dragons, the Jormungandr Talons and the Spear of Longinus were alien to her till that day. Of the many weapons that had scoured the world, it was the second that frightened the Chinese martial artist the most. The Jormungandr Talons brought plague and disease capable of killing thousands within seconds; death came slowly and every second till then was agony taken to horrific heights. She remembered the outrage and fear she had felt when she beheld them in the missile silos beneath a hidden military base on the Korean border. Their gleaming, rune-inscribed flanks and ornate heads bore within their bodies a death sentence for those who would defy China's new rulers.

Amidst the many questions that took shape in her mind, only three made it past her lips. How and where had Liu Shen-Dao and his co-conspirators in the Imperial Court acquired such weapons? Why? And to what end? Knowing the young noble as she did, there was no doubt in her mind that his reasons were less than noble. She was not wrong. Ambition and greed had sunk its claws deep into the hearts of many in the Imperial Court. It was the bitterest of ironies that the subversive elements that the Dragon Throne had accused of undermining its efforts to rebuild and reunify the country had come from within its own ranks. And the wounds these had inflicted upon their country and its neighbours would be long in the healing.

Jam closed her eyes, remembering the devastation caused by both the Jormungandr Talons and the Thousand-Forged Dragons. She remembered, most of all, the expression on her lover's face as he stood amidst the charred ruins of what had once been the prosperous Korean border city of Kam-Seong. It was the look of one who had seen his worst nightmares become a reality. But most of all, she would remember the dignity when he stood before the _entire _Imperial Court, weathered their blistering tirades, and called them out for everything they had done that had led to the disaster.

It was, in her opinion, the best thing she had ever seen.

**(O)**

**_Via Fortis_**

**_Legion Fortress of the Howling Griffons Knightly Order_**

**_At that very moment_**

Via Fortis – the Road of Fortitude, the ancient Legion Fortress of the Howling Griffons Knightly Order, was a colossal edifice whose walls and guns had defended the Vatican against any and all adversaries during the bloody years of the Fourth World War and the Crusades. The man the first Legion Master of the Howling Griffons had commissioned to build his fortress had been none other than Sir Elias Prester, one of the few people in the world that the renowned military architect Gerard van Housen had acknowledged as his equal. Each of the twelve Knightly Order chapter strongholds that Elias had built mirrored a facet of war that its occupants have made their own.

The Knightly Order of the Black Templars, for example, favoured close-range action over ranged combat. As such, their citadel, Castle Prospero, was constructed in such a way that an invading army had no choice but to fight its defenders on their terms. Grand Marshall Robert Lannister had once boasted to his peers that a full battle-company of Black Templars was more than enough to hold the citadel against all comers. It was a boast proven during the Siege of Rome, when the feared _daemon_-class Gear known as the Doom of Heroes had tried to take the fortress and was thrown back time and again, suffering injuries to both body and pride as the mocking laughter of Prospero's defenders with each failed attempt.

Via Fortis was designed to draw an invading force into specially-constructed kill-zones that would allow the citadel's defenders to cut down their adversaries from a distance and deny those who specialized in close-ranged action any sort of advantage. Ky Kiske knew that the Howling Griffons' combat doctrine was born from their experiences in the Middle East during the first days of the Gear Uprising. Only the bravest and the most foolish would dare stand up against a Gear in close-combat, for even the least of them held the advantage in such a contest – and that was before it called upon the Charms and inborn abilities of into play.

The White Knight's eyes went to the guns resting in the holsters of his escorts. There was no doubt in Ky Kiske's mind that the specialized rounds used by the Gear Hunters of the Wyld Hunt had been loaded into their magazines. It was a wise precaution, if what he had been told by Ibrahim about his son and his compatriots having gone into the Methuselah Empire (2) to carry out a mission had been true. The Empire was home to many powerful Gears, some of whom were not as tolerant of humanity as the rest.

But the weapons, like the twelve Legion fortresses whose walls had seen decades of war and strife, were seeing their original purposes of defending humanity being turned to oppressing it. It made Ky Kiske sad. Justice had told him, long ago, as he laid at her mercy, that humanity was its own worst enemy. The atrocities the human race had committed in the long centuries since God cast them out from Paradise had long ago justified His decision to do. The White Knight paused briefly to look at the crowds that filled the square and the grounds of Via Fortis, many of whom had come from far and wide, to lay awed eyes upon that which they had heard of only in story and rumour. None of them were aware of the unseen war that was being fought in plain sight, and of the sacrifices made to defend their liberty.

"It is a good thing that the Lord Cardinal had arranged our meeting on a day when the crowds allow us to slip in unnoticed," Aleph's voice broke Ky Kiske out of his sombre thoughts, "Otherwise we'd attract far too much attention. Lord Kiske…?"

"Yes?" Ky Kiske heard the question in the younger man's voice, stepping aside to allow a group of laughing Korean children in traditional clothing to run past him.

The young paladin hesitated, trying to find the right way to frame the question that would not offend the older man, before deciding that honesty was the best way to getting answers, "Could you tell me about the events that led up to the Dragon Fall? I was told by my friends within the OIS and the Holy Order that it was because of you that our relations with China are…tense, to say the least."

Ky Kiske did not speak for a long time. His memories regarding the entire debacle were bitter ones. Corruption and nepotism had sunk its black roots deep into the heart of the Chinese Imperial Court, and many of the officials within the Forbidden City were men whom the former Holy Order Commander would not hesitate to throw into prison and dispose of the key in a similar fashion. And considering that many of them were in some way responsible for the disaster they blamed him for, perhaps a firing squad would have been the better option. It would have resolved many of the problems that the country was facing.

"Tense is an understatement," the fallen paladin finally replied, "The Chinese Imperial Court sees a chance to restore the former Federated States of Asia, and wants to seize it with both hands. The only thing holding them back is that their military has yet to recover from the losses it suffered during the Crusades and that many of the provincial governors refuse to have anything to do with Beijing. But to answer your earlier question, yes, it was my fault things are the way they are.

"I should have listened to the senior Dragon Throne agents whom the Emperor had sent to help me in my investigations, but I did not. I had just learned how deep the Post-War Administration Bureau and the Chinese underworld had their claws in the country, and the extent at which the ruling elite were willing to go to ensure they remained beyond the reach of the IPF. I was less than willing to trust a member of an organization that had clearly been compromised," Ky Kiske turned to look at towering battlements of Via Fortis, where the long-barrels of Hydra flak-cannons were trained on the skies, awaiting an enemy that would never come, "I chose to act. While I do not deny that my decision killed many IPF and Holy Order field agents and made things difficult for those who wish to make China a better place than it had been before, it was better than to be paralyzed by indecision."

"Do you think that sparing the nobles would have lessened the political repercussions, Lord Kiske?" Aleph asked the fallen paladin.

"If you knew what I know about them, that question would never be asked. Your father was of the mind that allowing them to live would be a greater mistake than killing them. I agreed with him."

"Cardinal Alessandro believes otherwise."

"What he believes does not concern me. What I know does, and Cardinal Alessandro is a man whom I would make a head shorter were I given the chance. He has wronged me enough as it is. Unfortunately, I must leave his sentencing to your father. The two of them have…unfinished business."

Aleph flinched at that, and he saw that his companions had fallen silent. Even vivacious Beth, who had been in the middle of arguing with one of the Gears over the benefits of using Indian spices over Italian sauces for steak, had gone quiet. Hiroko had fallen into a distant look in her eyes, the memory of a time when the Cardinal and the father of her surrogate child had been friends rising from the shallow grave it had been buried in. Ambition had created a rift between the two, and pride had deepened it. Ibrahim had burned the bridge when he learned of Alessandro's transgressions, and the latter retaliated by branding him a heretic and putting his name on the much-dreaded Red List.

"How is it," Beth asked, "that two men who have fought side-by-side during the Crusades could become such bitter enemies...?"

"Nothing sunders a friendship more surely than betrayal," Ky Kiske said as he strode towards the guarded gateway that led to the massive inner courtyard of the Howling Griffon citadel, "Many within the Church believe that it was Ibrahim who turned on Alessandro, but a closer look at events that have led to the two coming to blows reveal that this might not have been the case," the fallen paladin turned to look at Aleph, "Your father may be a lustful devil, but he is a _loyal_, lustful devil. I have never seen him take lovers from outside his harem. Family was important to him, as it is to any member of the Thirty Clans. Anastasia Labatt (7) was of the same opinion, which may be the reason why she chose your father over Alessandro. Better a commoner's whore – and I am quoting her when she decided to leave with your father – than the wife of a noble."

The shocked laugh from Hiroko caused Beth and Aleph to look at the older woman.

"I take it that something I said amused you?" Ky Kiske looked censoriously at the female Templar, even though his eyes twinkled with amusement.

"The part of my cousin being a lustful devil is _quite_," Hiroko grinned as she emphasised the word, "accurate. As is the loyal part. The one part you missed out is telling Aleph just how many women are in his harem. And how many siblings and half-siblings he has."

"I doubt he cares, Hiroko," the White Knight replied with an arched eyebrow, "If his choice of companions are anything to go by, I suspect that he will be following in his father's footsteps sooner rather than later. But tell me, Aleph. Have you met any of your siblings?"

"I've met some of them," Aleph replied, a faraway look in his eyes and a happy smile on his face, "I got the shock of my life when I met some girl in Moscow some months back and she gave me a hug that almost broke my ribs. She called me brother, and introduced herself as Anya and her twin brother as Boris. They said that their mother, who I later met, had been an airship commander who had served with my father during Operation Winter Bear some 23 years ago. I had first thought they had mistaken me for someone else…but something inside me told me that this was not the case. I felt like I knew them. Like I had always known them."

"What you felt is known in the Thirty Clans as the Bloodline Resonance," Ky Kiske said, "It is a, for lack of a better word, Discipline every member of the Thirty Clans is born with. As long as you have the blood of any of its members in your veins, you will know your own and seek them out."

"I will have to tell my cousin to not share too much of our secrets with you, Lord Kiske," Hiroko looked annoyed, "It is…unwise for an outsider to know so much, even if he is going to be part of our family."

"You're mistaken, Hiroko. It was not Ibrahim who let the cat out of the bag," the former Lord Commander of the Holy Order said, "It was Baiken. She was of the opinion that my knowing would better prepare me as a member of the Thirty Clans."

Hiroko chuckled, as she moved closed and rested one armoured arm on the younger man's shoulder, her eyes sparkling with wicked humour, "Nothing can prepare you for life in our ranks, Lord Kiske. The only thing I can promise you is that you will most certainly enjoy every moment of it. It is a good thing that the Seishino manse is for most part empty – and big. And fear not, the walls of our homes are soundproof – and durable."

It was in moments like this that he wondered if part of God's plan included his being flung into Hell.

**X X X**

It took Ky Kiske and his entourage 15 more minutes before they reached their destination: the Grand Chapel of Via Fortis. A magnificent building twice the size of the Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, its palatial grounds, gleaming walls and beautiful statuary lent the citadel's eastern quarter in which it was located a serene air unlike the rest of the fortress. He had been here once, long ago, in the hours after the Knights of the Howling Griffons had managed to break the Gear assault on their fortress.

The ground had been thickly littered with bodies, and the air was thick with the metallic scent of blood, ozone and cordite. The pavilions and fountains had been reduced to rubble and the well-tended lawns and gardens had been reduced to ground, bloodied mud and blasted craters. He remembered the entire western transept of the Grand Chapel being demolished, courtesy of an elder Dragon who had been brought down by anti-aircraft guns and incensed Holy Order mages.

The fallen paladin shook his head and pushed the memory of the Siege of Rome to the back of his mind and strode into the portal leading to the Howling Griffon's Central Chapel. There he saw, at the far end of the chapel before the altar, was Cardinal Stephen Lybrand and his retinue. The older man was clad in the robes of his office, while his guardians were clad in the flowing black and silver robes beneath gleaming battle plate worn by the RUN Army's stormtroopers. They were armed with fearsome chain-swords and Firewand handguns, the latter of which was fashioned after the flintlock pistols used by the British Navy in the 18th Century.

It was only when Ky Kiske came closer that he realized his mistake. The Firewands that rested in the holsters of the Cardinal's bodyguard were nothing like the ones he had seen used by the Holy Order's assault companies. These were larger, the calibre closer to the hand cannons favoured by the RUN's enforcers and bounty hunters the world round. Created by the French armourer, Charles Germaine, and modelled after the old English blunderbuss, the Firewand Thunderbolt guns sacrificed range for sheer, destructive power. The White Knight had equipped his Honour Guard with the same weapons, believing the trade-off to be well worth it – an opinion shared by many in the armed forces. Every human soldier knew first-hand the formidable regenerative powers of the Gears. The range of a weapon counted for nothing if it lacked the power to halt a rampaging monster in its tracks.

"It has been a long time since you have set foot within the walls of the capital of His Kingdom on Earth, Lord Kiske," Cardinal Lybrand's greeting had the former Lord Commander of the Holy Order turn his attention back to the aging prelate, "On behalf of His Holiness and my peers, I bid you welcome and offer you and yours my protection for the duration of your stay within the city."

"Thank you for risking much to meet me, your Holiness," Ky Kiske bowed to the older man.

"Think nothing of it, my son," the Cardinal replied, before turning his attention to his bodyguards, "The rest of you shall remain here. The three of you," the old priest looked at Beth, Hiroko and Aleph, all of whom were standing behind the White Knight, "You shall accompany me and Lord Kiske to the Sanctum Imperious. There is much we need to speak of, and the words that shall be spoken are for our ears alone."

**X X X**

**_Catacombs of Via Fortis_**

**_The Processional of Eternity_**

**_20 minutes later…_**

The catacombs of Via Fortis were not the dank crypts many would imagine them to be. The cold wind that blew through the corridors and ruffled the banners that hung from its high arched ceiling bore on its wings not the scent of death, but of age and honour. Here, under the unflinching gaze of angels and saints alike, the honoured dead of the Howling Griffons Knightly Order – those that could be recovered from the many battlefields they fought on – rested beneath biers of cold marble, the sarcophagi of each sculpted by magic and master artisan in the likeness of those who had long ago crossed the River Styx. Those whose bodies could not be recovered were honoured by having their names inscribed on the vast walls of the Processional of Eternity.

One name among the countless thousands engraved on the Processional caught Ky Kiske's eye: Dmitri Petrovski. Ky Kiske knew him. Born in Russia, the Howling Griffon Devastator sergeant had earned his earned his laurels by undertaking missions that were the province of the brave and the insane and whose penchant for taking a heavy bolter into a close-ranged fire-fight had many veterans diving for cover when they saw him. Ibrahim – who had once been part of Ky Kiske's honour guard during the Crusades – had been Dmitri's last student. The former had described his mentor as a man who wanted nothing more than to go home, raise crops and forget the horrors he had seen in the long decades he had spent fighting the Gears.

But the grim, red-clad Horseman never released his chosen unless it was to give him or her over to his ashen-armoured brother. And it was at the fortified city of Beirut, during the final months of the Crusades, did War grant Death his permission to cut the thread of a warrior who had walked the unforgiving road of a brutal profession long enough. The Gear that had killed Dmitri was a demonic angel whose name was a curse on the lips of millions for the atrocities it had committed in the decades since the Gear Uprising: Az'rath, the Ashbringer.

A sadistic and bloodthirsty creature, the Ashbringer embodied Justice's unbridled wrath and her desire to exterminate humanity. Testament had once told him that Justice had tolerated Az'rath for one reason and one reason only: the Ashbringer was a potent weapon – one of many Justice had at her disposal – that would allow her to make her dream a reality. But the Angel-type Gear was a weapon almost beyond the control of the Gear Commander and her Tyrants, due to the implants grafted to its skull by the Chinese government in the days of the Fourth World War. Only by focusing much of their considerable will was Justice or her generals able to control the Ashbringer. Knowing that it was only a matter of time before Az'rath stepped over the line and turned his blade on his fellow Gears, Justice took steps to rid herself of the angel and his cohorts.

Though Ky Kiske would sooner drink poison than admit it, Justice's plan to kill Az'rath was one worthy of a master. The manner in which the Gear Commander had manipulated everyone and the events leading up to the joint UN-Holy Order invasion of the Middle East was breathtaking. All Justice had to do was grant the Ashbringer the resources it needed – as well as her permission – to strike the heavily-defended Hierarchical City of Paris and burn it to the ground. That attack would live in infamy and was immortalized in history as the Night of the Sundered Crown. By the time the sun had risen, over forty-eight thousand people had died and much of the city reduced to ruin. It was the straw that broke the camel's back.

Before the attack, Ky Kiske had wanted to strengthen the armed forces and secure those countries which were under attack by the Gear Hive Fleets. After the attack, he committed the sum total of humanity's forces on a campaign to end the Crusades once and for all. In as many languages as there were countries, one word was spoken – and that word was _Jyhad_. A word that was misused by religious zealots of the Muslim faith in a time when their ambitions bordered on madness, it declared to the Gears during the final hours of the Crusades the promise of bloody retaliation and humanity's determination to end a century-long nightmare.

Though the few would say it aloud, there were many who agreed that some good had come about from Justice's brazen attack on Paris, chief among which was that the Royalist faction's near dissolution. Ky Kiske had counted himself among them. If there was one thing the fallen paladin hated more than the Gears he fought and the criminals he punished, it was the nobles of the Royalist faction. Every time he crossed paths with one, it was all he could do to not leave said individual a head shorter. The Royalist nobles believed the world theirs by right of birth and all that lived in it subordinate to their will, to be used and discarded as they wished.

Many of the scions of the Royalist noble Houses claimed descent from the ruling elite of the pre-Crusades era, and many of these controlled the factories and industries crucial to the war effort. As such, their words carried much weight both within and beyond the fortified manses where the leaders of humanity gathered. Such power was fertile soil for arrogance and greed to fester, and the former Lord Commander of the Holy Order had heard stories of many such incidents and bore witness to more than a few. He understood then why his predecessor had detested standing in the same room with a Royalist noble coterie; their relentless scheming and power-games had cost the latter more than a few men and battles in the years he had been Lord Commander.

Ky Kiske had never seen Dmitri grin as broadly as that day. The sight of the palatial estates of the Royalist nobles being blasted into oblivion and their pride and dignity being dragged over the coals and through the mud had exorcised many of the demons that had haunted the dour Russian for the better part of his fifty-three years. When night fell, Dmitri would reveal to him and many others that which he and those like him had been sworn to never speak of. It almost had the leaders of the Crusader army setting out to finish what Justice and her Tyrants started. It was only because of Ibrahim that they did not, and even the swordsman had been hard-pressed to not give in to his wrath.

But an example had to be set. The rank and station of an individual mattered not when one transgressed. It had taken him the better part of a month to calm down and come up with a suitable punishment, but it was one that left many grinning and nodding in approval. Rather than punish each individual for their crimes, as was normally the case, Ky Kiske punished the whole faction by sending them on a Penitence Crusade. The uproar from the survivors of the Royalist noble Houses he had expected; what he did not expect was that there were Royalist nobles who supported the idea. These were of the opinion that the corruption and greed which had rotted out the ideals upon which the faction had been founded on needed to be stamped out.

And nowhere were the fires of redemption hotter than those found on the battlefield.

When the invasion of the Middle East began, the armies and airships of the Royalist nobles flew and marched alongside those of the UN and the Holy Order. Men and women who had long ago tested their skills in formal duels and hunts soon saw those skills being turned on monsters who were capable of killing a dozen armoured men in short order. Pride became conviction and honour became fortitude. On a hundred battlefields and a thousand nightmares did the Royalist faction regain that which they had cast aside in favour of a life lived in comfort and hedonistic pleasures.

But the cancer of the soul was not a thing easily or swiftly expunged. Ky Kiske turned his gaze onto another section of the Wall where the names of several Howling Griffon Knights were engraved. All of them had been minor nobles of the Royalist faction who supported the changes taking place within the faction and whose families had benefitted greatly in the days following the Night of the Sundered Crown. All of them had fought under his banner ever since his elevation to Lord Commander of the Holy Order, their every victory bringing them a step closer to ending the Crusades.

All of them had died under suspicious circumstances. Baron Charles Lockhart of Canterbury had died of a heart attack in mid-battle while his peer, Gerald von Reichstag of Berlin was cut down but a block away by Shadow Elf warriors during the Battle of Kiev. Lady Knight Beatrice and her bodyguard had been cut off during the Battle of Istanbul City and were slaughtered by a Gear counterattack. The same had happened to Sir Logan Rackham, who had been killed while he and his company were falling back to more defensible positions. The mystical shields on Lady Catherine Belinsky's airship had failed during the Siege of Tehran, allowing one of the Gear Tyrants to tear it from the skies in an awesome show of power that routed her army from the field.

And they were not the only ones. There were many more names – common and highborn alike – engraved on the Processionals beneath the other Legion fortresses and on the Walls of the Honoured throughout the world whose owners had fallen under similar circumstances. The manner of their passing should have raised flags, but he had been in the midst of directing a war where a single misstep would have sealed the fate of all humanity. As such, he had chosen not to look into it too deeply. It was a mistake that would cost him dearly.

It was only much later, in the days after his excommunication and placement on the Red List, did he realize that many of the suspicions shared with him by his inner circle were not the products of an overactive imagination or a spiteful heart. Treason had been planned in secret by those nobles whose greed and wounded pride saw to them raising a hand against those whom they believed had wronged them or who stood in the way of their ambitions. And his name stood high on a list filled with the names of those whose only crime was to create a world better that had no need of the archaic traditions of a bygone era.

Ky Kiske felt cold fury fill him. Was persecution and poverty the reward for those who had given their all to set the world back on its feet? Was starvation and despair the final honour to be conferred upon men and women whose blood had made an impossible victory possible? Did their victory pave the way for the wicked to lay claim to world? Was it better if the Crusades had never ended, and that Justice was never imprisoned? There were times when the fallen paladin wished that such was the case. Sol had been right. _Justice_ had been right. When humanity was without an enemy, it would turn on itself.

He knew he could have stopped them. He had the resources and the influence to thwart the ambitions of those who could not see beyond the weight of their own purses or the size of their holdings. But to do so would have meant leaving Baiken to her fate, a slave to the PWAB and its aims for world domination. It would have meant he and Jam would never speak as often as they did now. It would have meant that he would never have Dizzy near him, her ruby eyes and innocent smile masking the succubus that dwelt within, promising the world and more if he all but be hers.

The fallen paladin remembered what Millia Rage had told him when they met in a cafe in St. Petersburg all those weeks back. For good or ill, he had made his choice – and it was one that made more sense than any that was offered him. Rather than devote his life to the countless thousands whose faces he had never seen and whose names he did not know, he had chosen to protect the few whose lives were precious to him. Was such a decision selfish? Not to her. Not to the women he loved. Not to his children, who had yet to be born. Every path he had taken through wilderness, through war had led to this moment.

He had not come to the Vatican to take revenge. He had not come to reclaim that which his enemies had wrested from him. He had come to do his duty, to fulfil an oath he had made all those years ago when the inferno of the Crusades devoured men and nations with equal relish. Ky Kiske ran a thumb over the feather Dizzy had given him prior to his leaving the Broken Sword Inn, the warmth of her lips on his and the mischievous smile on her face the promise of sunlit days and of sinful nights. He wanted his final days to be spent in peace.

'_When this war ends, boy, I would like to go home and set up a business. The motherland needs every strong arm it can find to help return it to its former glory. You are more that welcome to join me there. My people will be glad to have a man like you lead us. God knows, we need you more than the English and German imperialists do. Maybe we can find a good woman there for you, while we are at it, da?'_

The fallen paladin smiled, remembering Dmitri's broad grin, boisterous laughter and the iron grip of his headlock. He reached into a nearby tray and withdrew a candle, lit its wick from one of the many candles lining the walls of the Processional, and placed it in the sand-tray. Taking out his sword, Ky Kiske, the former Lord Commander of the Holy Order, knelt before the ghosts of countless thousands and asked them for forgiveness. He told them what he had done and why he could no longer keep the promise he made to them. He told them how the world had changed, of places he had been and of the people he met. He told those ghosts of the battles he had fought, of the enemies he laid low and of the corruption that was slowly eating away at the unity that had once allowed mankind to stand firm in the face of an invincible foe.

He told them of the women he had fallen in love with, and he could almost see in his mind's eye the expressions on the faces of the multitudes who now waited for him in Paradise. He saw shock and delight; he saw horror, approval and awe; he heard bawdy laughter and scandalous suggestions being made in regards to pleasing a woman as well as questions in regards as to how sturdy a house we would have to build to hold the offspring of a demigoddess.

The memory of what had taken place the night before he had left to meet the Lord Cardinal caused the former Holy Knight to redden. He remembered the playful, lustful leers on the faces of his three companions and the fierce, hungry kisses and caresses that had led them into a sweet inferno whose crucible left all who submitted to know paradise. Baiken had been insatiable. Their time apart had served only to fan the embers pink-haired swordswoman's libido to insane heights. The Beast had been in the swordswoman's cerise eyes, looking at him with a mixture of love and lust. Her husky voice as she looked up at him from between his legs, his erect phallus between her full breasts, promised pleasure the likes of which the jaded would sell their souls to know.

The fallen paladin swallowed hard. The memory of his seed covering the Japanese swordswoman's face, breasts and hair, and the way which she had lathered it over her lush body was one that would haunt his nights for years to come. The lustful, hungry expression on Baiken's face was the same one he had seen on I-No's when he had raped the dark-haired guitarist amidst the inferno consuming the Vatican. Ky Kiske remembered how I-No had writhed beneath him, her shrill cries filled not with fear or pain, but with lust and ecstasy. It was as if his violating her was something she desired, and the vicious beast that lurked within him the true self she wished to unleash.

The fallen paladin had never spoken of what he had done to anyone. He had been deeply ashamed of his actions but could not make amends to the seductive guitarist, as the latter soon became his sworn enemy for reasons she would not share. It also baffled him as to why I-No had never used what had transpired between them to blackmail him, the answer of which would come straight from the musician herself as they clashed in the ruins of what had once been the Russian city of Volgograd in the days before his fall from grace.

"_Unlike those you answer to, cutie, I do have standards when it comes to dealing with my enemies. I will not stab you in the back. If and when I do kill you, it will be face to face. And on that day, you and I will show the insects scrabbling on the ground the true meaning of power. We will rock the world beneath their feet."_

Ky Kiske shivered both in fear and arousal. The way I-No had looked at him as the scantily-clad witch spoke volumes of what she would not say. It also lent credence to what Johnny had told him. The scantily-clad witch viewed him as her property and took offense when anyone contested that claim or tried to do him harm. And when I-No got angry, the destruction she left in her wake would equal that caused by a flight of Gear Dragon Aspects.

Case in point was when the guitarist reduced the Inquisitorial fortress of Stormwind, which was located on the coasts of Scotland, to a pile of rubble and everyone in it to tinned meat. It was when he got word of its destruction did Ky Kiske realize that her capture and subsequent incarceration had been part of a cunning plan to assassinate Cardinal Marzone, the feared Director-General of the Department of the Inquisition, and to force him to go to Illyria.

There, both he and his compatriots would find themselves neck-deep in a conspiracy that threatened to tilt the balance of power in the resource-rich Balkans. He had read the reports, but had never known that the situation in the region had been as bad as it was. He had abandoned the search for I-No and had tried to resolve the situation, but things had come to a head before he could accomplish anything. The regional warlords, with the assistance of the Church-backed Invictus Party, attacked the capital. That it was a massacre was an understatement. He himself had barely escaped the city with his life, and only managed to do so only because Sol and Johnny had risked theirs to pull his broken, badly-wounded body out of the fiery apocalypse that had once been the capital of Illyria.

Wrath and outrage had driven that same broken body to rise up from the cold floor of the _Scherazade_ and stagger towards the distant flames of a dying city, determined to pay the regional warlords and the Church-backed Invictus Party for their treachery. Had Sol and Dizzy not stopped him, he would have thrown himself off the airship and fallen to his death. The hatred he had felt that day and the screams he had heard as he and his compatriots tried to fight their way out of the city was now an ember, but its heat was a thing that would have set Paradise ablaze.

"What are you thinking about, Lord Kiske?" the familiar voice of Cardinal Lybrand caused the White Knight to look up and at the older man. Aleph and his companions were behind him.

"I was thinking about Illyria."

The Cardinal's face fell at the mention of what was possibly the blackest mark – one of many – committed by the Church in the years after the Crusades. The conquest of Illyria was nothing but a blatant attempt by the Church hardliners and their allies to seize its resources and technology – which had allowed the country to withstand _decades_ of invasion by the Gears – and to position its armies in striking range of the Methuselah Empire (2). The last thing the Suzerain of the Empire wanted was a war. The memory of the Crusades was still fresh in the minds of both her children (as she called the Gears who had sworn fealty to her) and her subjects (as she called the humans who had done likewise). As a result, neither party – no matter how much they detested the other – wanted to fan the embers of a bitter, century-long war back into a raging inferno. The cost of allowing the dogs of war to slip their leashes a second time would be disastrous.

But the hawks within the RUN Senate and the Holy Order were of another opinion. These would not be content until every Gear was either put to the sword or back into the shackles of slavery, and that every individual and organization that consorted with them was punished. The conquest of Illyria was but a means to that end. But it was an endeavour that was starting to come apart at the seams. Illyria was a bastion of pro-Kiske supporters. The RUN Army and Holy Order forces stationed there had suffered numerous attacks, and many within its ranks had deserted or mutinied when they learned of the White Knight's placement on the Red List. Not only that, many of the agents that PWAB and the RUN had sent into the country were being killed off one after another by unknown assassins.

No one knew who they were or where they came from, but one thing everyone within and outside Illyria agreed on was that they were very, _very_ good. It took no small amount of planning to assassinate a PWAB representative and his bodyguards within the heavily-guarded Alabaster Palace without raising the alarm. The act in itself had been a message, one that had left every collaborator and traitor in the country shaking in fear.

_"__I was there, Cardinal," the White Knight continued, "when Illios fell and I took up arms against those I once led against the Gears for the first time in my life. These were not criminals and thugs who prey upon the weak and helpless, but soldiers who had sworn an oath to defend the very same."_

_"__Lord Kiske…"_

_"__I was there when those same men became little better than rabid dogs that needed to be put down. I remembered what Commander Undersen told me as he laid dying in my arms," Ky Kiske turned to look at the older man, "He told me that even if we won the Crusades, we would be fighting a hundred wars in its aftermath to keep what we have won – and can win – from the hands of those who wish to return the world to the one that had led to the nightmare we lived in."_

_"__Was that what caused you to turn your back on the Church, Lord Kiske?" Aleph asked the former Lord Commander of the Holy Order._

_"__Yes. Though that was not the only reason."_

_"__What was the other one?"_

_"__You already know, Aleph. There is a cancer in the Church that cannot be easily expunged with sword or flame. I have neither the power, the authority nor the time to do so," the sombre expression on Ky Kiske's face became a sad one, "All I can do is to ensure that the ones I love do not fall under its shadow. And to do so, I must do the unthinkable: I must send others to fight in my stead. And all I can say to those men and women that will fight and bleed, suffer and die, is that every single battle of every single war that will be fought from here on out is that if they lose, they will lose far more than their lives."_

_The heavy silence would be broken only when the group reached their destination twenty minutes later: the heart of Via Fortis, the majestic Sanctum Imperious._

**(O)**

**_The Central Market,_**

**_Across the _****Ponte St. Angelo**

**At that very moment**

"What do you mean by that, I-No?" Dizzy asked I-No, her now-golden eyes glowing with the effort of holding Necro and Undine back. The two Seraphs were both less than pleased to be in the presence of the one who had caused their host no small amount of grief. The fact that Dizzy was pregnant had made them all the more protective of her.

"If you give me a chance to sing this song, I will. Like I said before, I'm not here to start a fight," the crimson-clad witch replied, before turning her attention to Baiken, whose cerise eyes were now golden on black, an indication that the Beast in her blood was all but howling now, demanding the death of one whose existence offended it, "My master has me on a short leash. If I so much as play the opening scores of one of my Arias, there will be Hell to pay. But if you draw that blade, bitch, all bets are off. I…" the witch's lips curved in a malicious grin as she jerked her head to where a small group of well-armed mercenaries were perusing the wares of a weapons shop, "did not come alone."

Said group, the pink-haired swordswoman saw, wore the colours of a well-known Russian mercenary outfit known as the Winter Wolves. She estimated that there were at least twelve of them, all of whom were clad in light body armour and armed with the deadly tools of their trade. The wary looks the mercenaries shot her way told Baiken that they knew who she was and what she was capable of. Any misstep on their part would result in their dismembered bodies lying on the market's ancient cobblestones – and that was if she got to them first. Sensing her intent, one of the mercenaries pushed back her cloak, revealing a Phoenix Staff, a warning that any hostilities initiated on the swordswoman's part would be met with deadly force.

Baiken turned her attention back to I-No, her lips curled in a contemptuous sneer, "Do you really think that my sisters and I are incapable of doing away with the refuse you brought with you?"

"You can try, grandma," I-No said, her eyes bright with anticipation, "But I assure you that your killing my fuck-toys will buy me the time I need to make you, the chipmunk and the bird regret it. Pope Pussy's puppet-masters have agents and eyes throughout the city. I only need to draw their attention and you three will be in a world of hurt. That goes triple for the little birdie," the witch gave the blue-haired Gear Commander a lascivious look that made the latter narrow her eyes, "Do you have any idea just how many men there are out there who want to turn you into their private cum-dump? The wankers and wackos in the PWAB and the leader of the Methuselah Empire's Reconquista faction are just several out of many. And even those have nothing on the Tin Men and Choir Boys who think that their screwing you will make them the father of a new Christ."

"Do you honestly think that I would allow these worms to sully my womb with their seed, I-No?" Dizzy's voice was colder than the void, the malice in it an echo of her mother's near-limitless cruelty, "That I would choose such inferior blood to be heir to my legacy?"

"You know, birdie," I-No strummed her guitar, the sound rich and approving, "You're hot when you talk like that. And I agree. I may have fucked many men silly but I will have none of them knocking me up. Inferior genes and all that crap aside, none of them were any fun. Ky-baby, on the other hand, doesn't tell me what to do or how I should do it. And he's fun on a whole new level. I just cross the line and he comes down on me like a building. Though I would rather he came **_inside_** me…" the witch shivered as she remembered the times when her nemesis had done so and had reduced her to quivering mass of boneless flesh, unable to even think clearly, "I would scream the sky down…"

There was a sharp crack as icicles whipped around the blue-haired Gear Commander, a clear sign that I-No had managed to get under Dizzy's skin. The dark-haired guitarist grinned; she could practically smell the bird's desire – and her frustration at being unable to – to rain fire down on her head and piss on her charred corpse. The knowledge that she could anger such a powerful entity and get away with it was intoxicating. That said entity and her compatriots were aware that she was the reason why their man was still alive was icing on the cake, as it was.

"Do you want to see what death is like so badly that you would test me, slut?" Baiken reached for her sword, her patience finally snapping, "Because I will be more than glad to take you up on your offer."

But before the pink-haired Japanese swordswoman could draw _Tsukikage no Kaze_ out of its sheath and charge the Scarlet Witch, a vice-like grip around her wrist stopped her from doing so. It shocked Baiken to see that said hand belonged to Jam, whose expression of stern fury told her that any attempt to initiate hostilities on her part would lead to her being flung into the nearby river – the houses, buildings and shops in the way be damned. The brief but fierce wave of searing _qi_ energy that caused the Chinese martial artist's long ponytail to whip upwards and silver eyes lent weight to the younger woman's unspoken threat.

"I-No, I would strongly recommend that you watch what you say," Jam's voice was ice water on the fury of her sisters and the smug arrogance of the smirking guitarist, "And I would ask the two of you," the Chinese martial artist looked at Dizzy and Baiken, "to calm down. Much as I hate to admit it, sisters, the _yao-ching _(3) is right. We can ill-afford to ruin the only chance our man has to make right the wrongs he has allowed to happen when he chose us over his duty."

"Let go of me, Jam-_san_…!" Baiken growled, straining against her brown-haired sworn sibling's unyielding grip to no avail, "I will end her before…"

"Before what…?" Jam asked Baiken, her voice barely audible to the latter, "Before you, as she said, attract the attention of our enemies? We are standing in a city where their word is law and their servants many. While I do agree that killing her would solve many of our problems, this is neither the time nor the place to settle our feud. There will be another time, of that I am certain."

"Jam is right, Baiken_,_" Dizzy added reluctantly, "There will be other chances for us to resolve our…differences with Miss I-No. Vengeance is a dish best served cold – and is all the more delicious when said object learns that she is allowed to walk away from a fight she has no chance of winning in the first place. Besides," the half-Gear's golden eyes returned to their normal crimson hue, "I am interested in what she said earlier. What did you mean when you said that all of this could have been avoided had my mate gone to Ireland instead of going to Egypt?"

"You really are like your mother," the red-clad witch replied before sighing in disappointment and putting her guitar on the ground, an act that allowed those nearby to catch a glimpse of her bared breasts even as it indicated to the three women before her the willingness to honour a truce she clearly detested, "Why don't you all take a seat? This…could very well take a while. Oh, and some privacy would be nice…"

Baiken fired the surrounding crowd a fierce glare, an unspoken warning for everyone to mind their own business. Most decided to take the hint and returned to whatever they had been doing earlier. The only ones that kept their eyes on her were the mercenaries the musician – or rather, her master – had hired. The scowls they directed at I-No told Baiken that they were less than pleased at the former's attempt to stir up the hornet's nest. The Japanese swordswoman turned her attention back to the guitarist, the latter of whom had taken to leaning against one of the marble pillars surrounding the Fountain of Nike far from her instrument.

"Now, where to begin…?" I-No turned to look briefly at the magnificent edifice behind her, her eyes taking in the image of the Crusades' most – even now, despite his excommunication and his entry on the IPF's feared Red List – revered hero, "Yes. Yes, that would be perfect. Tell me, girls," and I-No looked at the three women before her, "what do you think would have happened to the world had Ky Kiske died during the Siege of Rome?"

The shocked looks on their made the Witch of the Scarlet Ruin smile. It was a thought that had crossed their mind no few times, considering the penchant Ky Kiske had for getting himself involved in fights that would have ended the lives of lesser men many times over. I-No shook a finger, mimicking a teacher about to rebut her student's argument, "Now, now, I was just asking. Humour me..."

"We…" Jam was the first to break the silence, "Humanity would have lost the Crusades."

"Close, but not quite," the witch replied, "Losing that idiot would drive the Immoral Flame up the wall, believe me. It may surprise you to know that that meat-head is one of the few who supported Ky Kiske's appointment as the Holy Order's top dog. I have seen other timelines when other men – or women – were appointed to take Old Man Kliff's place. Some of them did okay. Some of them fucked the pooch from the get-go. And there were those who _turned. Me. Off," _a look of distaste crossed I-no's face, "The worst among all the worlds I've seen was when Lucius Valeren was chosen to be Lord Commander. Now that is one self-righteous bastard I would not have hesitated to strangle in the crib. You would be amazed at just how many timelines that feature that idiot as the Holy Order's Lord Commander – and how badly he made a mess of things."

"I-No," Dizzy cut the musician off as the import of what the latter had spoken sank in, "What are you saying…? You've been to other timelines? You have the power to cross dimensions? But such a thing is not possible! The technology to do so…"

The scantily-clad musician grinned, "Has been lost. And I'm the only person that has it. And no, I'm not telling you how I got that power. That's a secret – and a girl's gotta have some. But with it, I've been to worlds where humanity won the War. I've also been to the ones where we lost. I've also gone to those where it ended in a stalemate. And it all came down to three things. One was if the meat-head – AKA Sol Badguy, Immoral Flame and Arch-Heretic – gets injured in the fight with your guardian, birdie. The second was if Ky Kiske survived the Great Retreat and the Siege of Rome. The third was if I got involved. Should any of those three events go sideways, we go straight to one of the many 'We're Fucked – Game Over' endings. But since we've managed to avoid the 'Dead Ending' game routes, I decided to take a look a further look down the other timelines."

"Tell me, witch," Baiken's voice held a hint of curiosity amidst her disdain, "What exactly did Lucius Valeren do that earned your enmity?"

"The only thing a self-righteous asshole with the strength to fight any of Justice's Tyrants to a stalemate and an ego larger than God's hairy ass can do: fuck up an already fucked-up world. In the timelines where Lucius Valeren, Conqueror of Evil and Slayer of Justice, did not doom humanity to extinction," the contempt in I-No's tone was beyond corrosive, telling the three women that the musician detested the corrupted paladin more than she did many others, "he reduced much of the world to ash with his PWAB-backed Purity Crusades. And what was the purpose of that war, you ask? It was to make the Church the power it had been a thousand years ago, when the rulers of the Western world were subordinate to its wishes and dictates. Only this time, they wanted the entire world under their rule."

"Did they succeed?" Jam asked, knowing the answer long before she even voiced the question.

"You already know the answer to that question, chipmunk," a cruel smile curved the guitarist's lips, "And the reason they succeeded was because there were men and women within the Holy Order who believed that the ends justified the means. They did not only use the weapons from a Black Soul-Forge in their Crusade. They," I-No looked at Dizzy, "also used Gears in their war."

"What…!" the Gear Commander's voice was filled with disbelief, "How?"

"Simple. The PWAB managed to do two things in that timeline. They managed to kill Ky Kiske and capture you. Remember when I said that there were no end of wackos and nut-jobs inside the PWAB and the Holy Order who wanted to turn you into their personal cum-dump? They did that and more…" the sadistic look in I-No's eyes serving only to emphasize the torments Dizzy's jailors had seen fit to visit upon her body and mind, "I enjoyed hearing you beg, birdie. I enjoyed hearing you scream as they fucked you and made you bleed. You wanted nothing more than to die, to be spared further pain and humiliation. But you were too valuable to be killed off just like that. It was only through you that they could make slaves of your people once more and complete their conquest of the world."

No one spoke. The world I-No spoke of was a bleak one where virtue had been twisted into something dark and cruel, where hope had been cast into a cruel prison and power was in the hands of the wicked.

"And what of the other…timelines, witch?" Baiken's icy voice broke the grim silence, "That could not be the only world you've seen. It would have bored you to no end to see those liars bestriding the world like their weak God."

"You're right. It did. I left after a few days. I returned to this time-line and, from here, took a trip as far down as I dared go. And what I saw surprised me…" I-No replied.

"What did you see…?" Jam asked.

I-No grinned, her eyes gleaming as the electric guitar that had been resting on the ground ten feet away materialized in her hands in a flash of blue-white light, "I believe this is the part where showing is better than my telling."

The eyes of Jam and her sisters widened in alarm as they realized that they had but scant seconds to act before I-No unleashed a devastating aural assault that would level the district and kill every living thing in it. Dizzy whipped out the force sword the Master of Legions had given her, the psychoactive crystals within the blade set ablaze by the force of the Gear Commander's incandescent will as she prepared to rain fire down upon the woman whose machinations had caused both her and her family so much pain. Baiken drew her Firewand Thunderbolt gun from her sash in one smooth motion, the expression on her face cold with hate. Jam lunged forward, hoping against hope that she could stop what was about to happen.

None of them made it. The scantily-clad witch strummed her guitar once, and a dimensional rift tore open beneath the four women. Time and Space heeded the musician's call and, for those brief seconds that would encompass lifetimes, suspended the workings of the universe. Chains shot out from the multi-coloured, swirling vortex and wrapped themselves around the limbs and bodies of the musician's enemies, effectively ending whatever punitive action the latter had hoped to exact upon the former. All tried to break their bonds, but to no avail.

The chains that bound the three women were made of a rare metal found only in the depths of Japan's Mount Fuji (the base of which was also where the largest Japanese colony in the entire country was located) and which had in each of its indestructible links the power to hold any of the thirty Divine Beasts that Caroline Eltnam Atlasia (6), one of the Gear race's creators, had created in the decades prior to the Third World War. And each of said Beasts was stronger than the bird or her mother by far. That was the reason why all of them had been kept in stasis at the Stairway to Heaven, the codes for their reawakening known only to their creator. And the latter had been killed by US government agents who were determined to make sure that her skill and knowledge would not fall into the wrong hands. Not that it helped, the red-clad witch thought. Doctor Caroline had seen fit to share her knowledge with her master, and the last had used it to set a rotting world ablaze. From the depths of that unforgiving crucible was forged a future that the guitarist wanted to see in its entirety.

"I-No…!" Dizzy roared, her voice causing the buildings within the district to shake even as she unleashed a shockwave that sent the time-frozen forms of the bystanders and the stalls they patronized crashing to the ground. The scantily-clad witch barely had time to leap back and create a kine-shield to turn aside the worst of the shockwave, lest she be made the cause of considerable collateral damage. I-No grinned; it had amazed her that the Gear Commander's descendants had been able to keep a low profile for as long as they had. With the power they had at their command, any one of them could have brought about a Second Crusade. But instead, they chose to pursue dreams that wasted whatever potential they had.

But those who bore in their veins the blood of the White Knight in their veins were touched and tested by the Fates – and the last was loathe to leave such interesting individuals in peace. Among the thousands of Ky Kiske's descendants were those whose exploits would make them legend. And they were legion: the Hundred Blades of the founder of the Solar Empire; the advisor to the Lord Militant Archibald; the Seraphs of the Seven-Dragon Shogunate; the Lion of SeeD; the Lightning Knight and his son by the Silver Siren (6) and many more.

I-No's hands flew over her guitar as she sung for these magnificent men and women whose lives, like their distant sire, were akin to shooting stars soaring in the starlit night. Though brief, they proved to all that lived of not what has been done, but of what can be:

**"Hush, my little one,**

**I am bringing you to Neverland;**

**Listen and weep,**

**Know love and sleep;**

**All stories have an end, and fortune graces the land.**

**In a hero's name it is done, **

**For the briefest moment, his time in the sun. **

**Unto those yet to be born;**

**Open your eyes and behold the sky,**

**Know now, I shall not lie.**

**Hear my voice and all their stories,**

**Only one in three does it end in glory.**

**Walk with me in the ruins,**

**And watch as angels and heroes rest in silent sin."**

When the last words of the ballad left the witch's lips, all four women were pulled into the swirling, multi-coloured abyss. And there, in a place I-No called the Crossroads, they watched as their descendants fought and bled for those who would lay them low had the latter known the manner of the monsters they had called upon to fight under their banner. Across ten thousand years and under as the light of a million suns, against enemies beyond counting, they would be part of humanity's myth – an army of murderers and killers without peer, their tears and blood the mortar by which a dream as old as the ages would be sanctified and given life anew.

They saw a young man of Japanese descent, his face bearing a striking resemblance to the man the Dizzy and her sisters loved, standing before a massive army, their battle-flags bearing the colours of countries and kings yet to be born. Amongst the war-host stood gigantic, bipedal war-machines – far larger than their smaller siblings – whose arms held the death of cities in them and whose banners flew in honour of the young man they looked upon. A crack of lightning caused the three women to look upwards at the skies, and their eyes widened at the sight of the massive armada whose armoured hulls brought the writ and the will of their masters to those they made war upon.

"What is this…? Where are we?" Baiken asked the quietly smiling witch. The latter was looking fondly at the young man who stood at the edge of a mesa, surrounded by the women he loved and the men who bent knee to him.

"Where we are is not the right question, grandma. _When _we are is the right one. As to where we are, we are in the Himalayas, ten thousand years into the future. And this," I-No swept one arm to the titanic army arrayed before then, "is the Declaration of the Grand Order."

"The Grand Order…?"

I-No nodded and strummed her guitar, her smile becoming a grin, "This is where history is made and the stage set for when Crown and Church clash for the right to be King of the Hill. And he," the musician nodded to the young man whose hands held a weapon whose lustre and lethality had yet to dim with the passing of centuries, "is at the heart of it all. Oh, and here is a spoiler I will share: that cutie over there is our descendant."

"He's our descendant…?" Dizzy's voice was shaking, as the blood resonance she would share with her offspring came alive and sent the Gear Commander crashing to her knees. She tasted this young prince's soul, and wept. There was pain there, from a wound gouged into the heart and soul, an acrid taste of tears that bespoke of torment gifted to the innocent by the wicked. There was conviction there, taking the shape of a sword of promised victory resting within a sheath of stone. There was anger there, the fearsome shadows of the feared Horsemen standing beside him, ready to unleash their wrath on those that had crossed their master. And there was love and tenderness there, the scent of _sakura_-cherry blossoms in spring and the freshness of a river filled with life. All this and more gave shape to a promise this young king had made unto those loyal souls who loved him.

"He's beautiful…" the Gear Commander whispered.

"That he is, _ai-ya,"_ Jam planted her fists on her hips, shaking her head in mock despair, "No wonder he has so many girls around him. He will be a good father, I can tell! Though he'd better have a big house for all the little _mo-kwai_ (8) he's going to have."

The young man smiled as he raised the sword he held in one hand high, the alabaster blade gleaming bright like a star amidst the darkness and making the men and women, both Gear and human, below him smile even as they raises the voices in a roar of approbation and defiance.

"_Ave, Kira Yamato! Ave, Leon Caeli…!" _(5)

**(O)**

**_Via Fortis_**

**_The Sanctum Imperious_**

**_20 minutes later…_**

The last time Ky Kiske had stood within the heart of the Howling Griffons' citadel had been during the darkest hours of the Crusades, in the days before Justice's armies had descended upon the Vatican with the intent of ending the long war between humanity and Gear-kind. He remembered the fear and the urgency that had pervaded the underground fortress as the Knights and Legion serfs of the Howling Griffons prepared for what would be the bloodiest siege in the history of the Crusades. The Sanctum Imperious was located twenty stories down, accessible only by vast stairways, fortified hallways and a series of massive freight lifts that allowed the Knightly Order to bring to bear the few pre-Uprising battle-suits it had to the upper levels of the Legion fortress.

Here, amidst the blockhouses of the underground citadel, the Howling Griffons and their allies would fight to bring an end to their feud with beautiful Marilith-type Gear Lamia, the latter of whom was responsible for the death of both their founder and his family. The Gear Tyrant had not come alone. Marching beside and behind her was a war-host thousands strong, all determined to kill every Howling Griffon Knight they could get their hands on. Ky Kiske had come to the aid of the Knightly Order after repelling an attack led by the Ashbringer. What they had found was a majestic fortress turned into a blood-drenched slaughterhouse, with corpses and shattered defences at every intersection and strongpoint. In the Siege of Rome, only Via Fortis had suffered the ignominy of having its defences shattered and its halls turned into battlegrounds.

It had taken the relief force the better part of four hours – and well over half the relief force – to reach the Sanctum Imperious. They would find what was left of the Howling Griffons standing amidst the aftermath of a titanic confrontation that would reduce a powerful Knightly Order to a pale shadow of its former glory. And yet, when asked, the last of the Howling Griffons had stated that the sacrifice of their entire Order had been worth their ending the life of an enemy whose hatred would had seen to the deaths of countless innocents. Christmas had long been regarded by many across the world as a time of mourning. But on that day, amidst the inferno of a siege that many within the Vatican had regarded as a sign of the End Times, three hundred and seventy valiant souls would mourn no longer and fear not the shadow of the Ashen King.

In the years after the Crusades, the last Chapter Master of the Howling Griffons, Aravane Ebongrave, would honour the heroes of the century-long war by commissioning the creation of the Triumphal Arch, a monument which depicted on its walls and statuary the many victories won by the Knights of the Holy Order and the UN Army. He would also upon his Legion's artisans to create the Hexagonal, which would rest deep within the Legion fortress.

The monument, smaller by far than the majestic Triumphal Arch, comprised of nothing more than the deadly six-foot, hieroglyphic-engraved _khopesh_ (9) swords wielded by Lamia, all of which were locked forever in sheaths of white-veined obsidian, on an altar raised but a foot off the ground. Standing at the heart of the Hexagonal, immortalized in gleaming stone and clad in the robes and battle-armour of a Knight of the Holy Order, was the hero whose scythe and passing had paved the way to the Gear Tyrant's defeat: Hiraga Saito (11), the Scarlet Angel. The young man had once been part of Ky Kiske's Honour Guard and who, despite being five years younger, proved himself the equal of any Legionary Champion. Relentless in battle yet gentle in peace, the Japanese warrior-mage dreamed of a time when the world would be a better place than the one that had led to the Uprising and the Crusades.

His attention soon turned towards the small group that stood before it, all of whom were clad in the colours of a country regarded by many across the world as the reigning superpower of the post-Crusades era. It did not take him long that the armoured men and women that turned to look at him were not the personal guard of said country's _boyars_. None among them would see to their protectors clad in the ornate battle-plate of the one force whose martial prowess had no equal in the entire world: the Veniceriof the Methuselah Empire – the royal guard of its ruler, the Suzerain. These would always be within forty steps of their charge, ever watchful for any threat and ready to respond with deadly force.

But even the martial puissance of the Veniceri paled in comparison to that of the human woman who stood among them. Clad in the red-and-gold coat of the Veniceri, Millia Rage removed the beret she wore and nodded in greeting, an amused smile on her face. Several questions took shape in Ky Kiske's mind, the first of which was what the former assassin and tour guide was doing in the service of the Empire. The second question, which was considerably more important than the first, was who exactly the Veniceri had been tasked to guard. As if knowing what was on his mind, Millia tilted her head in the direction of the figure that emerged from behind the statue of the Hexagonal.

Voluptuous, clad in an exquisite low-cut, emerald gown with golden scrollwork, and whose veiled head boasted an elegant circle-crown, was a woman whom Ky Kiske had met when he went to the Empire to safeguard it from those who would seek to lay claim to a throne they had no right to and reignite a war he had given his life to end. A woman whose power, intellect and charisma saw to her creating an empire overnight; a country which encompassed – and extended beyond – all of the countries Alexander the Great had ruled over centuries ago. A queen whose ideas and vision made her _different_ from all the statesmen and kings that came before, and who Ky Kiske would have been glad to enter into alliance with had such an opportunity presented itself.

Empress Augusta Calenhad Lucifera, Suzerain of the Empire, stood within the seat of power of her greatest enemy and bade the man responsible for both the defeat of her race and the preservation of her empire welcome in a voice that told the latter that what he beheld was no illusion.

Ky Kiske turned slowly to look at Cardinal Lybrand. He found himself annoyed by the mischievous, boyish smirk on a face far too old for childish pranks. He saw that Aleph and his companions were likewise stunned, a clear indication that they, too, had been played by their master.

"You and I, Master Lybrand," the former Lord Commander of the Holy Order promised the Cardinal with a smile that had had Crusade veterans wet themselves, "will have words when this is over. And if I find the reasons as to why you did not see fit to inform me of Her Majesty's presence less than satisfactory, I will throw you into the River Tiber with naught but your undergarments to keep you warm."

Cardinal Lybrand coughed to hide his laughter, something which all the rest within the Sanctum masked as best as they could, "I beg your pardon, Lord Kiske, but the request for such subterfuge came from the one standing before you. As to the reason why she is here," the humour faded from the older man's face, "There is much you must know, and I will have you hear of it first-hand from she whose realm is now in danger of rebellion. I am aware that you tore the one before out to its roots, but the cancer yet remains. Reconquista has returned, and they come in league of an enemy older than when Christ himself walked the earth."

**X X X**

_**The Ascendant Dawn**_

_**Flagship of the Suzerain of the Empire**_

_**Four hours later...**_

The _Ascendant Dawn_ was the personal flagship of the Suzerain of the Methuselah Empire. A majestic warship over half a kilometre in length, it boasted weapons capable of levelling half the Vatican as well as technological marvels which surpassed that which had been made in the years before the Gear Uprising. Stealth fields and magical wards saw to it that neither the highly-advanced sensors of the Grand Cross Citadel nor the mystical auguries within St. Sophia's Tower would be able to detect them.

Ky Kiske gazed down at the _caput mundi_ laid out beneath him, its inhabitants and buildings made small by the lofty heights upon which he stood. A beautiful, blessed place that hid temptation and sin in its shadows; a city he had defended, and where humanity had stood as one against the dragon that had laid siege to her gates. He could see in his mind's eye the fires that consumed the Vatican and the fierce battles that raged in every street and alley. He could hear commands given by stalwart men and women who refused to give way in face of overwhelming odds. He could feel the breath of every Gear who sought his life, and the white-armoured, crimson-maned demigoddess whose wrath would have equalled God's own.

But Justice and her Gear armies were not as great a threat as the one that had hid in the shadows. It was a cult whose existence predated the coming of the Son of God and whose words stirred the greedy and ambitious to treason. What they sought, no one knew, but what they were close to accomplishing needed all who defied them to be as one.

'_**They were the hand behind Pontius Pilate and the Pharisees who saw to Christ being crucified. Theirs was the word that moved the virtuous to heresy. And theirs were the schemes that caused brothers to turn on one another.'**_

He remembered what Cardinal Lybrand had told him regarding the secret societies the Inquisition had uncovered, and the works of those that remained hidden still. Interrogation of those who stood high in said cults revealed a beautiful woman, ancient beyond the counting of days and wielding power beyond anything that could be imagined, orchestrating a war older than when fabled Atlantis had yet to sink beneath the waves.

'_**Their shadow fell first upon the West. They insinuated themselves into the very fabric of society, drawing upon the limitless resources of nations and empires so as to prepare for a time when theirs was the word and the will.'**_

The holographic, three-dimensional representation of the world revealed to all just how far and how deeply the cancer had spread. The number of countries that were free of the pernicious influence of the _Oculi Dei_ and their cohorts could be counted on the fingers of one hand.

'_**Their corruption spread to the East, after their talons had wrested lands from its native peoples and taken treasures that have been in their keeping even before Lucifer's great rebellion. The East is a land far, far older than any in the West. There, myth and legend walk hand-in-hand with everyday life. Mythic beasts took on human shapes, and gained human hearts.' **_

Japan and Korea, which fell under the shadow of the Thirty Clans, was practically free of _Oculi Dei _influence. The American continent, which had been devastated during the Gear Uprising and the Crusades, was another. There, Gear Tyrants loyal to Justice held vast swathes of territory and dared their enemies to take what they considered theirs. In America, the Crusades had yet to end, a state of affairs that pleased those who were unwilling to lay down their arms. Australia and New Zealand, located far from the maelstrom of conflict and political strife affecting the rest of the world, stood as the last bastions – and a reminder to the rest of the world – of the glory it had lost. But even their isolation did not protect them from the attentions of the _Oculi Dei_. Powerful groups within the two countries, whom the Suzerain of the Empire suspects are backed by both the PWAB and their clandestine backers, wanted their leaders to become part of the international community once more – a move which would allow them access to technological templates lost to the rest of the world.

'_**There, the story of the Great Rebellion takes a different slant, and that which call lies and heresy is the truth we chose to forget.' **_

One of the _Veniceri_, at the Suzerain's command, had earlier opened a direct link to the Empire's main data-net and downloaded sensitive information accessible only to the Empress and her inner circle. Within seconds, the faces of those whose loyalties had been bought or were in question appeared before him. Each of them, whether human or Gear, had turned resources and influence to the cause of the _Oculi Dei_. Some of these were men and women Ky Kiske knew by name, and who had taken to the field alongside – or against – him. But whether friend or enemy, the knowledge that they would sink to the depths they now fell was to once more acknowledge a truth that I-No had told him long ago: All men could be bought.

The fallen paladin counted himself as one among their number. He had been tempted, and he had fallen. But what had been offered was the one thing he ever wanted. He paid the price willingly, and was to keep what he had won.

The _Oculi Dei _– the Eyes of God – was the name of the Inquisition's rightly-feared intelligence services. Their mission had ever been to ensure that the safety of humanity by ensuring that that which had nearly driven them all into Death's cold embrace would never again see the light of day. But these, the _False_ Eye, they desired differently. Knowledge was, to them, the very instrument by which they would wrest the crown and throne from God himself, so as to rule over all Creation as its unchallenged masters. And these were, ironically, despite their arrogance and ambition, not aligned with the Adversary himself. No, they would enslave the Devil to a crueller master than the one which had cast him down.

'_**The story of damnation is a sad and tragic one – and that is why we have chosen to forget it. It is because of that that we are doomed to walk the same path as those who took the journey before us. And unlike them, our fall will be farther, the wrath of God biting deeper...'**_

The former Lord Commander of the Holy Order strode towards the holographic console at the centre of the bridge and opened up several sub-windows, revealing the faces of the PWAB's principal agents in the European, African and Middle Eastern regions. They were men and women of influence and power. A handful of these, he noted with distaste, were the leaders of some of the world's most dangerous underworld syndicates. Five were the leaders of some of the most vicious pirates to sail the endless skies, and who the IPF and the Holy Order had placed a bounty on. These, the fallen paladin had no qualms in killing.

It was the ones whose deaths would bring about widespread chaos that were the problem.

Ky Kiske looked at the aristocratic features of one Manfred von Schindler, a powerful Rogue Trader with connections and allies in virtually all of Europe and North Africa, before turning his gaze on the elegant face of the British socialite-actress, Catherine Clyne, who was known to be the lover of the Britain's Archduke Gerald Birmingham, before finally resting last on the scarred and rugged face of General Franklin Krueger of the US Army. Kill Manfred, and the economy of many parts of Europe will be crippled; kill Catherine and the Archduke of Britain will send his country's feared Intelligence Services after the murderer; kill General Franklin and the Gear Tyrants will bring bloody apocalypse to the cities and towns of the United States' eastern provinces.

It was dilemma that had left both the Suzerain of the Empire and Cardinal Lybrand with a migraine of biblical proportions. The consequences of taking action were great. Not doing anything would bring about a world that despots and dictators of a centuries past would sell their souls to see come into being.

'_**...but the toll must yet be paid, so that all Creation will be free.' **_

Ky Kiske frowned. What stratagem will work against an enemy who was well-entrenched and who could call upon aid from those one least expects? Indeed, as said enemy is a hydra, how does one kill it? Cut off one head, and two more take its place. Mount an attack, and every monster would rise up from the mire to slay the assailant. One part of him wanted to throw caution to the wind and ride out to punish these heretics, but another – no less angry but far more rational – advised him against doing so. Kliff had taught him that anger was the first step on the road to a humiliating defeat.

It did not help matters to know that this was a war he could not fight and win. His strength was fading. When he would be ferried across the Styx, he did not know. Wielding the Outrage Weapon bequeathed to him by his predecessor had come at a high price, and ending the Crusades had all but sealed his fate. Ky Kiske remembered Dizzy's frightened, tearful face when the latter realized that her power could not heal the cancer that had taken root in his body and soul. He remembered the look of horror on Jam's face and the weary look on Baiken's when they learned of it.

The fallen paladin had no regrets. The road he had taken was one made of his own free will and the toll the Fates had asked he pay was one he paid willingly. In exchange for the trappings of a King and the power to command nations and all who lived within it, he was given freedom. In choosing to fall from grace, he would be caught in the arms of three strong, beautiful women he had grown to love. And in walking the many roads of the world, he would find one that would lead him home.

But before he took his leave, he would unleash the wolves on the heels of his enemies. They would be made to learn that supreme power was no obstacle in the face of bloody retribution. Force was the only language they knew. Ky Kiske shook his head and laughed inwardly; I-No and Ibrahim would have approved at the manner in which he had chosen to retaliate.

His eyes widened as an idea took shape in his mind. Was it possible to start an internecine conflict between the PWAB and its backers? Could their ambitions and goals be made to clash? Could their resources be made so scarce that it would force the factions under the aegis of the _Oculi Dei_ to contend with one another? These, he remembered, were not moral men and women. Their rules harkened back to a time when the word of the monarch was second only to God's, and these sought to place their earthly thrones over the King of Heaven's. He smiled grimly as various suggestions Baiken had made in the past emerged from the shadowy alcoves of his mind, turning an impossible stratagem into one that could not be undone even by the labours of his enemies.

Yes, that would work. When one's enemies were as hounds on one's heels, send not wolves but monsters on theirs. Have them know fear intimately, and have them learn that true power rested not in the resources one had or in the allies one thought one had. True power laid in the ability to have one's enemy do what one wanted him to do.

"If the expression on your face is any indication," the melodious voice of the Suzerain of the Methuselah Empire caused the White Knight to look at Methuselah_ Shinso_, "I take it that you have found a solution to our...problem."

"I do. And I think you and Cardinal Lybrand may find said solution to your liking," Ky Kiske opened several more sub-windows, this one displaying both Gears and humans he knew would heed his call to arms, "And please have one of your subordinates summon Aleph and his companions from the training hall. The first – and most crucial – part of this plan requires them to go into Illyria and help the secessionists there."

"But wouldn't that...?"

"That is part of the plan," Ky Kiske replied as he had the holographic map zoom in on Illyria, "Rather than have chaos serve our enemies, we shall have it serve our aims. If we succeed in our deception...the monsters we seek to defeat will turn on each other, doing our work for us."

**(O)**

**_The Crossroads_**

**_Time and date unknown_**

Time, space and reality were all malleable concepts, something I-No had learnt over the decades she had spent mastering the use of her powers. Some 20 years ago, she had met a young Ky Kiske on the outskirts of the French city of Lyon, and had sung for him and told him stories of heroes past and present. The seductive musician had stayed longer than she had intended, enchanted by a boy whom the Fates had marked for greatness. It had surprised the witch to learn that there had been numerous timelines in which she, instead of the local Holy Order commander, had intervened during the Gears' attack on the city.

I-No had taken the orphaned Ky Kiske to an orphanage that had been run by some of her master's most trusted retainers, the latter of whom helped mould those who had lost everything into a demigod's heralds. The guitarist chuckled. It was ironic that in all of said timelines, for one reason or another, Ky Kiske would don the robes of a Knight of the Holy Order and be given the weapon that would make him a legend.

In those timelines where Ky Kiske had been a servant of her master, he had never become Lord Commander of the Holy Order. Rather, he became the General of the Vermillion Legion, a combined Holy Order-UN Army force whose ranks were replete with some of the most vicious killers to ever take up arms in the service of humanity. Many of the orphans that had been taken under the wing of her master had likewise served, in various capacities, in said Legion and I-No had been appointed by her master to be the White Reaper's – as Ky Kiske was known in those timelines – advisor and bodyguard.

She watched as Ky Kiske forged his legend in the crucible of a brutal war. Charismatic and ruthless, with a tally of victories second to none, the White Reaper had built a power base and a reputation that all but made the limp-dick blue-blood whom the Council of Cardinals had chosen to become the new Lord Commander in the wake of Kliff Undersen's death soil himself. Lucius Valeren, Legion Master of the Golden Lion Knightly Order and the Lord Commander of the Holy Order in that timeline, had no doubt dearly wished that he had banished his rival to some remote outpost where the latter would cease to be a threat to his ambitions instead of bestowing upon him the Vermillion Legion's Rod of Command.

It was a scheme which, like so many others he and his compatriots have enacted to lay the White Reaper low, had backfired spectacularly.

It probably did not help matters that the Witch's Knight – another sobriquet that the elitist pigs within the RUN Senate and the Church had given Ky Kiske in that timeline – had had a harem many within and outside the glided halls of power would have sold their souls to have. And who could blame them for being envious? The women of the Black Valkyrie Honour Guard had sex appeal equal to that of the Succubae of the Gear hosts, and were just as wild in bed as they were in battle.

I-No strummed her guitar, preparing to open a temporal gateway that would bring both her and the three women back to Rome's Central Market – preferably one that had yet to be flattened by the wrath of the Alabaster Serpent's daughter. Her goading the latter earlier had been reckless. The voluptuous, blue-haired Gear Commander was a walking apocalypse, regardless of the time-line she came from. The power she wielded defied description. If she chose to unleash that power, the Solar System was truly and _utterly_ fucked.

It was the threat of that same power being turned on her enemies that had made them agree to the demands the White Reaper had made in the wake of the Armistice of Thorns. It was one thing to have enough Thousand-Forged Dragons to force cartographers to redraw the map of the world; it was another thing entirely to have an individual who was capable of turning the world into galactic pebbles staring straight at you. The Dizzy of the timeline I-No had gone to was a crueller and darker version of the one behind her. The former had brought the entire Gear race under the banner of the White Reaper, an act that all but made the latter the de facto ruler of the entire world.

In the face of such power, I-No could almost understand and forgive the extreme sanctions both the Vatican and the RUN Senate were prepared to mete out against a warlord whose power and influence made him a threat. Ky Kiske, the White Reaper, had done what the combined might of humanity's armed forces and its heroes had failed to do in over a century of war. He had single-handedly ended the Crusades and ensured that its tragedies and horror would never be repeated.

I-No saw that whatever hope the powers-that-be had had of restoring the balance of power, of having the Gears submit to the authority of the RUN Senate and the Vatican and returning the world to its former glory, die. It was in that moment of crisis that two paths were made known to the scantily-clad witch. One led to the Lord Commander of the Holy Order and his ass-kissers in the RUN sanctioning the assassination of Ky Kiske, Dizzy and their children. Regardless of whether or not the attempt succeeded, it had led to a Second Crusade that saw to the vengeful hosts of the Imperium making an end of both RUN and the Holy Order.

The second path, less likely, was that wiser heads within the Holy Order and the RUN Senate prevailed. These men and women forged a treaty with the Imperium and recognised the titanic supra-state that encompassed the entirety of Middle East and much of South-East Asia as part of the RUN. That treaty, which had seen to the birth of a new era and the end of a century-long nightmare, lasted for less than a generation before hard-line elements within both the RUN and the Holy Order seized power and mounted a brutal campaign to destroy the Imperium, whom the first decried as a rogue state and the second denounced as the dominion of the Antichrist.

The first strike that ignited the war was regarded by many on both sides as an act of spite against the House whose founder had made real the impossible wish voiced by countless thousands over the long, bloody decades of the Crusades. I-No snorted; it was the way of the rich and mighty to make the worst mistakes, lie to those beneath them and to run with their tails between their legs when they realized they had roused the anger of dragons, and leave those who looked to them for leadership to die. Even before the blood of the White Reaper had gone cold and the tears shed over his broken body had dried, the Imperium had expelled the representatives of both the RUN and the Vatican from the country before declaring war on both. That war lasted barely a year before the banners of the Empire flew over the newly-conquered nations of Europe, the last bastion of 'liberty' staring in terror across the English Channel at the gigantic army that stood at its doorstep.

The seductive witch smiled. She had been right about one thing. Living or dead, Ky Kiske was an individual whose very existence promised her an endless source of entertainment.

As I-No's fingers danced across Marlene, the melody that spilled from the guitar flowed in a way that made the guitarist's blood sing. She finally found the right combination! Blazing wards materialized and parted the turbulent, multi-coloured hurricane, revealing a Central Market that had yet to know the fury of the blue-haired Gear Commander.

I-No turned to look at Dizzy and her companions, "I cannot hold the portal open for long. We'd best leave before we get stuck here forever, and that is something I would dearly like to avoid. You get caught in a warp spasm here and you're gone for good. Not," a cruel grin curved the musician's lips, "that I mind. If you all died, I'd get more...private time with that ooh-so-cute Knight of ours."

The three women glared at the smirking witch with distaste, before following the latter through the portal.

**_To be concluded…_**

**Author's afterword and annotations**

Finally, after six months of hard work, Legion 2 (and the second draft) of Shades of Passion is completed! One more chapter left to go and this pet project of mine is done – and I can return to writing my GSD story. It has been kept on the backburner long enough; it's time to get back to it. Now, my readers, how did this chapter go? Please review. It is the one reason why I write.

1) Devoesjka – Russian for girl

2) Yes, I am using ideas from Trinity Blood for this. It works, after all…

_3) Yao-ching_ – Witch, in Chinese.

4) Deleted.

5) This story has links to my GSD story.

6) This organization ALSO has links to my GSD story.

7) For me (the author): picture is taken from Pictures Folder – G30.

8) Mo-kwai: Chinese for evil spirits/devils/ghosts. I may have misspelt this. Correct me if I did. Thanks.

_9) Khopesh_ swords – Egyptian sickle-swords used in the time of the Pharaohs.

_10) Deleted._

11) This is my lead into the Zero no Tsukaima story that I intend to write someday – and which will be quite the challenge, I have to admit. I'll try, but my ZnT idea is taking me somewhere else.

Glossary:

Az'rath, the Ashbringer: A powerful and cruel Angel-type Gear who had served under Justice during the Crusades. Though it managed to escape in the closing hours of the Battle of the Stairway, Az'rath was eventually killed by Ky Kiske years later in the Methuselah Empire during a coup initiated by the Reconquista faction who wished to overthrow the Suzerain.

Charms: Charms is the official terminology by the UN and the Holy Order for magic spells, and is used to describe cantrips that amuse children to the battle-magic used by Mages the world round. Casting a Charm requires a foci, which can be anything ranging from a wand to a sword (depending on the preference of the user).

Exalted, Dragon-Blooded: From White Wolf's Exalted, albeit with some changes. Baseline class is fighter. May multi-class into mage, cleric, shaman or druid. The Dragon-Blooded were the elite soldiers of the world's armies in the days before the Gear Uprising. Though small in number, their abilities lent to improving the cohesion and morale of their mundane peers. During the Crusades, the Dragon-Blooded served as Gear Hunters within the UN (and later, the RUN) and Holy Order armies. The power of the Dragon-Blooded can be passed down, but it weakens with every generation and strengthens (or maintained) should the consort of said Dragon-Blooded Exalt is also a Dragon-Blooded.

Empty Corridor Prison: The RUN's and the Holy Order's maximum-security prison. Once you go in, the only way you're coming out is either a pardon from a high-ranking member from either of the abovementioned organizations has been issued, or in a coffin. Forget about jail-breaks when it comes to the Empty Corridor; you'd have a better chance trying to kill Justice with a knife.

Federated States of Asia: In the days before the Crusades, the Federated States of Asia was one of the three superpowers in the world, surpassing the European Union and the United States of America in both economy and military power. The most powerful member state of the FSA (and who essentially was the leader of the coalition) was China, whose imperialist ambitions finally saw to it annexing numerous states in the Federation and igniting the Fourth World War.

Hive Fleet Behemoth: Hive Fleet Behemoth was the call-sign UN-CAF High Command had given the titanic force Justice had led into Europe. Millions strong, it had devastated the region and overwhelmed its defences. The Gear Commander had led this army in person, and with this almighty force, laid siege to the Vatican. The siege was lifted only when the UN-CAF High Command began utilizing pre-Crusade WMDs to shatter the Gear armies. The term Hive Fleet is a derogatory term given to the Gear Hosts, as the military leaders of humanity regarded the Gears as insects that needed extermination.

Hive Fleet Kraken: Hive Fleet Kraken was the call-sign UN-CAF Command gave the massive force Justice's lieutenants led into Asia. Larger than Behemoth by far, it struck at several countries at once, depriving the region's armed forces of the cohesion needed to repel the invasion. When Hive Fleet Kraken withdrew, it left nothing but death and ruin in its wake.

Intercontinental Mag-Lev: One of the few wonders of the pre-Crusade era. The network encompassed all of Europe, Asia, the Middle-East and North Africa. Built in the days before the Fourth World War, it had brought wealth and prosperity to parts of the world badly in need of both. The Gears did not destroy the IML during the Crusades because Justice saw the advantages of keeping it operational.

Methuselah Empire, Suzerain of: The Suzerain of the Methuselah Empire is the ruler of much of the lands conquered by and ruled over by Alexander the Great (excepting his birthplace in Europe, which is under human rule). A powerful _Shinso_, the beautiful demigoddess wants peace between humanity and Gear-kind, and has turned both her considerable intellect and power to make it a reality. She is fiercely protective of the daughter of her former mistress (i.e.: Justice) and her mate, and has plans to ensure that the latter's blood flows within her veins and those of her inner circle…

Night of the Sundered Crown: The Night of the Sundered Crown was part of Justice's plan to kill Az'rath the Ashbringer and win the century-long war against humanity in one shot. The first part of the plan was to mount an attack on the Hierarchical City of Paris, the headquarters of the 4th UN-CAF Army Division and the 23rd UN-CAF Airship Flotilla. Az'rath and his lieutenants were chosen to lead the attack. Under the cover of night, a strike force consisting of Methuselah, Shadow and Elven Gears infiltrated into the city. These would plant dimensional anchors at strategic locations within Paris which would grant the Ashbringer's Legions an edge over the city's defending garrison. When this was done, they went about assassinating the nobles of the Royalist faction and their allies as well as high-ranking officers of the UN and Holy Order army stationed in the city. By the time the defenders of the city realized what was going on, it was already too late. By the time relief forces arrived, close to fifty thousand people have been killed and two-thirds of the Hierarchical City had been destroyed.

Reconquista Faction (Methuselah Empire): A hard-line Gear faction within the Empire who adheres to the belief that Gears were superior to humanity (which is true in many ways), and who wish to overthrow the Suzerain of the Empire and make real the dream of Justice.

Shin Angyo Onshi: The agents of the Shin Angyo Onshi are the personal emissaries of the Dragon Emperor of China. They were tasked with ferreting out corruption and punishing law-breakers. Agents of the organization were formidable martial-artists and mages, and many had friends within the IPF and the Holy Order.

Tyrants: Tyrants were the leaders of the Gear hosts, second only in power and answerable only to Justice. Those that survived the Crusades have become powerful figures in the Methuselah Empire. Only a handful – and these formed the core of the hard-line Reconquista faction – did not swear loyalty to the Suzerain.

Veniceri, The: The Royal Guard of the Suzerain of the Methuselah Empire; taken originally from the Trinity Blood manga. In my story, I portray them in a fashion similar to the Custodian Guards of the Emperor from Warhammer 40K.

World War, Third: The Third World War would be the last and final chapter of Western dominance. It barely managed to defeat a rising China and her allies, whose economic and military might are approaching levels unseen by any Empire in written history. Its people, proud despite their defeat, know that their time had come, and that their ascendance was inevitable.

World War, Fourth: The Fourth World War was when Imperial China had conquered and ruled over much of Asia, and whose armies and influence encroached on countries beyond its northern and western borders. The situation is similar to that of the Second World War, save that the antagonist is a powerful China and that defeating it is beyond impossible. The Fourth World War ends with the Gear Uprising, which tears – and I cannot emphasise this word enough – the world apart (both literally and figuratively).


	3. Chapter 3

_**Guilty Gear: When the Sun finally sets  
><strong>_

_**Chapter 3: Before we say goodbye…**_

_**Written by Spiritblade**_

_**Disclaimer: **_This is another one of my practice attempts at perfecting the erotic genre, and I'm venturing into Guilty Gear for this. As everyone knows, Guilty Gear belongs to Daisuke Ishiwatari. I'm only borrowing the characters of the game for my own (perverted?) ends and to improve my mastery of the more…interesting genre (which comes harder to me than most). Now, on to the story – let me see if I can surpass myself. Also, I will be taking certain liberties in writing this story, so I hope I will be excused for this. This story will have ties to my GSD project, at least in regards to what had transpired in its distant past before the Cosmic Era dawned.

Be forewarned, though, I married White Wolf's Exalted (and a bit of Warhammer 40K) to this story, as the artefacts mentioned within the former fits the era in which the Crusades (and the decades prior) took place. Before human civilisation falls into ruin, it must have somewhere to fall from – and what better than when it **ALMOST** manages to recapture the glory of an era we remember in dream and soul-memory?

**A.N.: **Oh, and guys, I already have a full-time job. Any updates to my projects – especially my GSD one, the earlier chapters of which will need a hammer and chisel – will be slow in the coming. My line of work is renowned for leaving me out of gas by the time I'm done (but isn't that true for everyone?). Do leave a review or two (as well as suggestions and ideas) – it's a morale booster (both for me and the other writers on this site).

**A.N. 2: **I had decided to split the final chapter into two parts, so as to ensure that the flow and pacing of the story would not be ruined. One part of my creative conscience was berating me, stating that I was writing a story and not a history book. I decided to pay heed, as it can be very, **VERY** persuasive (i.e.: migraine). Nonetheless, I hope you all enjoy my latest chapter. And I apologize again if I took so very long.

**A.N. 3: **This is the second draft. Hope it was better than the first. Do leave a review, please. Let me know if I am still up to standard and if the story has flowed smoothly.

**(O)**

_**Rome**_

_**The Grand Cathedral of the Redeemed Lady Saint**_

_**23**__**rd**__** December 2146 A.D.**_

It had taken the better part of the day for Ky Kiske to outline to both the Suzerain of the Empire and Cardinal Lybrand as to what he had in mind. Though they had found much of what he had suggested distasteful, it was the only way to show the Post-War Administration Bureau and their allies that the powers-that-be had had enough and were coming down hard on them. This was not a war that would end with one party submitting to the other. It would only end when one had utterly destroyed the other.

This was a covert war that could not be fought in the manner known to all who had fought it. It was not only about espionage and intelligence gathering. It was not only about causing loyalties to shift and causing heads of state to question the intentions of their subordinates. It was of assassination and wholesale massacre. It was about lies, deceit and misdirection. What Ky Kiske had proposed was a campaign of terror that would cause the hydra to turn on itself. He wanted to ignite a war between the false _Oculi Dei_ and its cohorts and the PWAB. And he wanted to give both sides irrefutable evidence that their erstwhile allies have decided to plant the knife in their respective backs for credible reasons.

Baiken had called the stratagem the Serpent's Cradle. It was a strategy the Thirty Clans would use against enemies more powerful than them. They would open up multiple fronts and turn a conflict that could be predictable and directed into one that would require the wisdom and foresight of a deity to wage. Before their target knew what hit them, they found find themselves bereft of life, limb and lineage. The Thirty Clans, the Japanese swordswoman had said with a cold smile, never did anything by half-measures. Their survival depended on it.

Ky Kiske had taken those words to heart. Honour had no place in a war against an enemy bereft of such, and which the latter would exploit to swiftly usher him into a grave and the women he loved into fates far worse than death. It galled him to resort to such base means, by the White Knight was nothing if not pragmatic. The knife that was used at the dinner table could easily be used to end a man's life. And, the fallen paladin added as an afterthought, it would be insulting to not show his enemies how well they had taught him.

Chief among said lessons taught to him by his enemies – which he already knew and which they had refined into an art – was to bring as many of those with the resources and influence to rain hell on those one wanted punished. Cardinal Lybrand promised to bring in elements of the Inquisition as well as men and women whose discretion could be counted on into the fray, while the Suzerain of the Empire would commit elements of her _Veniceri_ and those nobles she could trust to carry out her will to the field.

And these were only the vanguard. When Ky Kiske and Dizzy returned to Japan with Baiken and Jam, the Thirty Clans would send their killers as well. Added to their number would be men and women the White Knight knew by name, all of whom had scores to settle with the Post-War Administration Bureau and their allies and were more than willing to dirty their hands doing so.

The fallen paladin smiled. He had succeeded. No, he had more than just succeeded. He had effectively signed the death warrants of the PWAB and their allies, and sowed the seeds of their ruin. It was only a matter of time before the world's aspiring dictators and manipulators found wolves snapping at their heels and death in every shadow. Ky Kiske knew he would not live to see the last of their number being hunted down and put to the sword, but he would take comfort that his enemies would live in fear all the days of their lives.

With his duty done and the pact between the Holy Order and the Methuselah Empire sealed, the former Lord Commander of the Holy Order had left the Legion fortress of the Howling Griffons and made his way to the one place in the Vatican that held a cherished place in his memories: the Grand Cathedral of the Redeemed Lady Saint.

Constructed in the decades before the Gear Uprising, the Cathedral had been a place of pilgrimage for both humanity and Gear-kind. Its architects had been the children of a Gear father and a human mother, and these had drawn inspiration from the stories told to them by their parents of the magnificent manses inhabited by the Priest-Kings of the First Age. The youngest among them had, when he grew older, published the stories his parents had told him in various mediums for the world to enjoy. And enjoy it, it did. Back when technology had been prevalent, animation companies had made animated serials and movies out of it. Respected authors and celebrated artists alike had painted murals and written stories based off a world that had existed in a time before Lucifer's rebellion had torn it asunder.

Such was its popularity and influence that both secular and religious authorities in the Crusade-era had declared the stories to be both subversive and heretical. Despite the rulings of powerful figures in both camps, both soldier and citizen kept copies such stories close to their hearts. Ibrahim had told him that hope was a hard thing to kill and faith without hypocrisy a thing more precious than the crown jewels of Heaven itself, and such was what was offered in stories outlawed by those who wished both to be a thing of their making.

It had taken little for Ky Kiske to join the growing number of men and women who saw that the Word was more than tracts from the Bible. A child still lived deep within the hardened exterior of the veteran, and that child wanted to believe in the things held dear by countless thousands the world over. He had never told anyone about the gift Baiken's cousin had given him, but the knowing smile on Dizzy's face told the former Lord Commander of the Holy Order that his half-Gear lover knew about it. When she whispered a line spoken by one of its female protagonists in his ear when she tended to his wounds after an encounter with a PWAB strike-team, the fallen paladin knew that the cat was out of the bag.

The same words graced the plague at the entrance of the Cathedral's entrance. They were the last words of a man who had been killed by Blue Cosmos (1) terrorists for trying to avert a war between humanity and Gear-kind. Set in elegant Arabic script, they gave voice to a prayer that had little meaning in a time when fear and distrust had overtaken reason and mercy. In the days after the Gear Uprising and during the bloody years of the Crusades, those same words were one whispered by parents to their children and by Knight-Chaplains to those they ministered to. But the long night had finally ended, and that which was once a whisper was now a shout. A new age was about to begin, one that would not be haunted by the ghosts of the past.

Ky Kiske ran his hand over the stone on which the plaque rested before turning his gaze on the statue which stood over it, its armoured arms spread in welcome. Instead of a saintly, beatific angel of the Almighty, the armoured form of a Gear Elf-Angel hybrid smiled down at him, the crossed spears behind her flying the colours of both the Methuselah Empire and Ky Kiske's personal crest – that of a golden cross and crossed thunderbolts superimposed over a double-headed eagle (2). Cast of the same indestructible etherite marble that was used in the construction of the Fountain of Nike in the Central Market, the statue's base had fit into the semi-circular aperture behind plaque's stone base, fulfilling a promise that the creators of the Cathedral had made over a century ago to finish their greatest work when the bitter war between humanity and the Gears ended.

The former Lord Commander of the Holy Order remembered the uproar when the Cathedral's caretakers realized that a twelve-ton statue had materialized in the place they least expected: their front door. For weeks afterwards, the appearance of the Solar Empress (a name given by a young child that was soon adopted by the inhabitants of Rome) had been the talk of the purists and anti-Gear groups had demanded that the statue be destroyed, but both he and the Pope had put their collective foot down. The Cathedral of the Redeemed Lady Saint was holy ground not only to the city's faithful, but acted as a memorial to the countless thousands that have died in the Crusades. Should any individual or group desecrate its grounds, they would find themselves persecuted to the fullest extent of the law – and that was if they managed to avoid (or survive) the beating the Crusade veterans had in store for them.

"_When word reached the Einzbern Family of your actions, the descendants of the Cathedral's architects decided that there could be no better time to fulfil the promise their ancestors made to the previous Pope and the High Chancellor of Rome."_

Ky Kiske took several steps back, allowing the statue to be superimposed over the magnificent edifice of the Cathedral, as the Master of Legions had told him to do. His eyes widened as he took in the hidden meaning behind the parable inscribed on the plaque. More than not giving in to hatred, more than not succumbing to fear, it spoke of simple truth behind words that spoke of many. The angel's wings cradled the Church, and the setting sun bathed both statue and edifice in its warm light. The former Lord Commander of the Holy Order could almost hear a voice in the wind, welcoming him home. He took a deep breath, taking in the faint scent of incense and of the stronger aroma of freshly-cut flowers and tilled soil, before walking through one of the two gates that led into the Cathedral's vast expanse.

"_My actions, Master Nanaya…?"_

During the Crusades, the Cathedral served as a place of repose for the war-weary soldiers of the UN Army and the Knights of the Holy Order. It was here that they mingled with the local populace, the former telling stories to the latter of distant lands and of the battles they fought. It was here that the fear that dogged them in the long days and the cold nights was forced to relinquish its merciless grip, where their prayers to the Almighty – or to whatever deities they worshipped, for the Cathedral housed several shrines that were non-Christian in origin on its grounds – would be heard. Christian purists had decried the presence of such pagan shrines as blasphemy, but both Ky Kiske and his predecessors had allowed them to remain.

"_You chose to spare the life of Justice's daughter, Lord Kiske. In that one act of mercy alone, you made right everything that the world did wrong. You promised it a future, even as you promised both that girl and the women who chose to be yours the same. Do you remember the credo of the Holy Order? The words each and every one of us swore to when we marched out to face an enemy mightier than we?" _

The former Holy Order Lord Commander stopped at a Japanese shrine that rested under sakura trees that the first Japanese Assault Divisions had brought with them when they first set up their fortress on the outskirts of the Vatican (3) some eighty years ago. These understood that few of them would return to their homeland and had wanted to erect a small temple where they could burn offerings and pray for their departed comrades. The city council and the Church had initially rejected their request on religious grounds but had their decision overturned by both Commander Undersen and Archbishop Alphonse von Einzbern. The latter had offered the Cathedral of the Redeemed Lady Saint – one of the larger Churches under his control – to serve as the religious centre to the various religious denominations within the UN Army to set up their own places of worship within its walls.

Ky Kiske walked towards a small Shinto shrine that had been constructed under a circle of trees, where Japanese soldiers would come pray for the souls of their departed comrades and for their families who awaited their return. The former Lord Commander saw in his mind's eye the all-too-familiar form of Yukiko Hara, commander of the 12th Imperial Guard Division, praying there. Proud and fearless, the dark-haired Asian woman had been present at the Siege of Rome. She had died fighting, holding the line beside Black Templar and Crimson Fist Knights and parrying every blow Justice's lieutenants had sent her way.

"_Yes, I do."_

But courage and sound stratagems were nothing in the face of an enemy whose every strike laid dozens of heroes low. It had taken the powerful _Daemon_-class Gear – a Marilith type, if memory served – three days to take the Bastion in which Yukiko and her compatriots had been holed up in. It had cost the lesser Gear Commander the better part of her force, but she finally succeeded in doing so. The triumphant Gears had made Yukiko suffer before killing her. Till this day, the sight of her naked, violated body, crucified and disembowelled against the walls of the Bastion would haunt Ky Kiske in the weeks after the siege was lifted. He had come too late to save the Japanese commander, but not too late to exact revenge on the Gears that had murdered her.

"_Recite them for me, brother."_

The Bastion in which Yukiko and the Imperial Guards had made their stand had been turned into a Buddhist shrine at the end of the Crusades. It was tended to by a branch family of a Japanese clan that had been appointed by the Japanese Emperor to act as his chief emissaries to the West. Who were they again…? He remembered that the members of said clan had fought under him during Operation Sledgehammer and that they had served the Emperor of Japan in various capacities since their return to grace at the end of the Third World War. No few in the Holy Order and the UN Army had owed their lives to the Japanese clan's healers and Battle-mages, who were regarded as being among the best in their respective fields. They had also assisted in the funerary rites that were held in the aftermath of the Siege of Rome, the clan's banner standing amidst countless others as the heat of the funeral pyres swept through the thousands-strong crowd in attendance. He remembered a dark-haired Japanese priestess, clad in the traditional garments of her order, standing before him and running one gentle hand down his face, her soft voice audible despite the roar of the flames and the tolling of a thousand bells. The _miko_ had told him that it was all right to cry, that there was no shame in mourning those whom Death had claimed.

"_The First Commandment is that of Faith: Let it be as a torch to guide thee in the darkness. Fear not and believe, and know that the Almighty watches over us all. But beware, for faith's flame, when it burns too bright for reasons both base and noble, becomes a pyre in which the innocent burn."_

But there were those who did not wish to be mourned, whether by kin or comrade. These demanded that a toast be raised to their shades and stories be told of their lives. A large band of Holy Order Knights and UN Army soldiers arrived at the same time as Sol and set up camp within the Kiske manse, before proceeding to drag its grieving master out to join them. And for once, the White Knight of the Holy Order acceded to his soldiers' demands. An hour into the wake, the same priestess Ky Kiske had met the night before arrived at the head of a small delegation. The latter bore with them a heavy urn which the priestess said held pouches containing a small handful of ashes of each and every Imperial Guardsman who had fought and died in the 17-day Siege of Rome. And these, she added, had done so in defiance of the command given to them by their Shogun to return to their homeland.

"_The Second Commandment is Justice: Let it be thy hand and thy flaming blade to lay the wicked low and set their works ablaze so that it will neither befoul the sight nor desecrate the dream of the Almighty. Know that should anger taint Justice, it becomes vengeance, and thy hands shall sooner than later be as bloody and thy heart as black as those thou have been charged to punish."_

Ky Kiske would learn that his counterpart in Japan had done what he had due to the urgings of the isolationist Golden Pheasant faction within the Imperial Court, who had learned that a second Gear host larger than the one that had carved a bloody trail to the Vatican was marching onto Asia to finish what the Destroyer of Heaven had started over a century ago. What the outriders of the Holy Order had managed to piece together regarding the second army that the Alabaster Serpent had sent eastwards was enough to cause no small amount of fear within the ranks of the Holy Order and UN Army commanders. Justice had led a twelve-million strong force tearing through Europe, Russia and Asia Minor – a force that was finally broken only at the walls of the Vatican. The Gear host that razed half of Asia to the ground before it was finally defeated after a brutal six-month war was three times that number. The former Lord Commander had led what forces he could muster in the aftermath of the Siege of Rome to buy the UN Army forces in Asia more time, but to no avail. There was only so much a force of ten thousand could do against a horde millions strong.

"_The Third Commandment is Fortitude: Let it armour your soul and strengthen your body, for the days and nights to come will be a crucible from which only the worthiest will emerge. As with the First and Second Commandments, beware this virtue taken to its extremes, for here is where vice can taint virtue, and contempt of those weaker than oneself takes it place." _

The White Knight remembered a man with dark blue eyes and flowing black hair, whose robes bore the same crest that had been sown onto the sleeves of the Japanese priestess who had presented him with the ash-filled urn. Ah, he finally remembered the name of the Japanese _Onmyo_ clan who had supported him before, during and after the Crusades – the Kagura clan.

"_The Fourth Commandment is Compassion: Understand that during these dark days, this is the one virtue that will easily be forgotten. Many shall be the plagues that can that can turn a man into a monster. Be strong, defend the innocent and ask not what they can give, but what thou can."_

The shade of Colonel Yukiko Hara of the Imperial Guard was soon joined by countless others, all wearing the armour and bearing the weapons of the Japanese Army. Many of these, the fallen paladin saw, wore his crest somewhere on their armour. Their helmets tucked under their arms, the torn, ghostly flags of their homeland fluttering in the night wind, the ghosts of the Japanese Imperial Army bowed as one to their Lord Commander and disappeared, their voices echoing in the wind, telling him that they will wait for the day he would join them in Paradise.

"_The Fifth and last Commandment, that which holds the first four in unity and in balance, is Wisdom. Here is the virtue that embodies that which our forebears lacked, which had led to the bonds of fellowship being broken and which had brought the world to ruin. Here is the virtue that shines in the eyes and is the light that shines from the crown of the Almighty. Wisdom is the name of She who guides the worthy to Paradise to receive his or her rightful due." _

"I knew I would find you here, Holy Boy. You always had a habit of coming to this place whenever you wanted time alone, same as the rest," a familiar voice caused Ky Kiske to turn around, his eyes wide as he beheld the powerfully-built figure of a brown-haired man whose name and accomplishments had made him a legend. A man who had been the standard the young man had measured himself against since their first meeting, and who he one day swore he would settle accounts with one day. He smiled inwardly; maybe that day had come. It would be good to write the closing chapter of their feud before he left the lands of his birth once and for all.

"I like this place," Sol Badguy, the Red Dragon of the Holy Order, added as he gave the Cathedral's well-tended grounds a glance, "It is one of the few places this side of the world that doesn't have the stink of the bullshit His boy-toys love so much. How have you been doing, kid? Last I heard," the swordsman blew out a long stream of smoke, "you were in China, trying to get away from the dogs the Council of Skirts and the RUN limp-dicks sent your way. What happened to them?"

"It has been a long time, Sol," Ky Kiske replied, "You have not changed in the least, I see. Your contempt for God and His servants have grown greater since I last saw you. Not that I blame you, all things considered. But to answer your question regarding that strike team the RUN sent to apprehend me…" the White Knight paused briefly, "My allies and I saw them off."

Sol raised an eyebrow upon hearing that. One did not simply see off an elite kill-team supported by a platoon of hard-ass commandos from some of the best military academies within and outside Europe in less than five minutes. Nor did one reduce the hardware they brought along – which consisted of no less than three _Legionary_-class Battlesuits and two Predators – to scrap in half that time. Whoever it was that helped Holy Boy, they were just as good as his pursuers. Sure, he and his harem girls could wipe the floor with them, but the aftermath would piss the Chinese Dragon Emperor off something fierce. The bird-girl had shown that if Holy Boy got hurt badly, she would not hesitate to put a new Grand Canyon – or make an extension of the original as she had when Holy Boy and his girls went to America to screw the PWAB over – on the map (4).

Sweet fucking Jesus, but the bird-girl's penchant for overkill would have made her mother proud. The underground PWAB bunker was smashed flat, and everything in it was on the other side of the River Styx in various degrees of mutilation. And he could not blame her. The PWAB prick had fired an experimental weapon at Holy Boy, wounded him, and accelerated an incurable cancer not even Justice herself (if she were of a mind to do so) could heal.

Sol stubbed out the cigarette he had been smoking on the Fireseal, before using his powers to reduce it to ash. He grimaced as the words of the Suzerain of the Empire echoed in his mind. Ky Kiske was dying. Nothing in all the worlds could prevent Death from ending the life of one of humanity's most revered heroes. Even from where he was standing, the swordsman could sense – could _see _– the slowly-spreading taint in both the body and soul of his younger rival. Sol turned to look at the distant spires of St. Peter's Cathedral, where men and women of power and influence gathered to 'honour' those they had sent to their deaths before they retired to the palatial grounds of the Grand Hilton Hotel to celebrate their 'accomplishments'.

There was no doubt in the Red Dragon's mind that no few among them would be raising toasts to their success in casting the White Knight down from the lofty perch from which he had stood. In another world, another time, Ky Kiske would have been welcomed among their ranks, a King who had earned by word and deed the crown he wore. But the roads that would have led there were closed to him now. Holy Boy had chosen the path where he made those who were precious to him happy. Sol grinned, remembering what Johnny had told him about his younger rival's…situation. It was enough to make a priest severely regret his decision to take that vow of chastity.

"Sol…?"

"I think it is about time you and me settle our scores, kid," the brown-haired swordsman said, as he drew the Fireseal from its sheath, "We can talk after that. And we have a lot to talk about. So, how about it, Holy Boy? Are you still as good as I remember? Or has all the time you spent running from those maggots dulled your fighting skills?"

Ky Kiske looked at Sol for a full minute before laughing. It was a sound that made the First Gear shiver despite himself, as his younger rival reached under his cloak and drew the sword that had ended the lives of countless Gears. The spirit within the Thunderseal turned its gaze on him and rumbled in warning. Maker or no, the Outrage Weapon was loyal to the one that wielded it. Sol grin became wider. When this fight was done, maybe he and Holy Boy could go get some beers and down them like real men.

"I hope you are ready to eat those words, Sol," Ky Kiske pointed his sword at him.

"Make me," the First Gear replied as he pulled a Dimensional Gateway Device from his pocket, "But let's do this somewhere where we can pull all the stops and not trash the neighbourhood, eh?"

**(O)**

_**The Broken Sword Inn**_

_**Trajan's Market, Rome**_

The respectable façade that Trajan's Market presented to the world during the daylight hours became that was less salubrious as darkness fell upon the Hierarchical city of Rome. Three massive stone bridges adorned with the statues of saints and angels divided a world where the law of the Church and the ruling elite held sway and one where one could rise to power by gun and guile. It was a world where scantily-clad prostitutes called out to potential customers from street-side and doorway, promising a night of pleasure and companionship for a small fee. A world where the life of a hated enemy could be snuffed out if one was willing to pay the price demanded by the countless bounty hunters and assassins who had made the district their hideout. That world was a haven for those who would profit from the blood, sweat and tears of others.

Among the second and the last were those that who had sworn allegiance to some of the European continents most powerful criminal syndicates, many of whom were locked in a bitter, continental-wide feud over which of them would control the exceedingly lucrative drugs and arms trade in the region. Violent clashes between its members were commonplace in cities where one group or another wished to gain dominance over the rest, but this was not the case in the Hierarchical City of Rome.

For one, to act out their feuds overtly in a city which was the dominion of the Church was suicide. Should the city's rulers be moved to ire by their actions, it was not a question of if one died within the cold walls of an Inquisitorial gulag or by the blades of their respective agents, but when. Second, the Vatican was regarded as neutral ground by the entirety of the underworld. Here was where their ill-gotten gains were kept under heavy guard by the numerous banks that operated within the city, and where the underworld leaders could meet under flags of truce. Last, but not least, was the simple fact that many of said underworld leaders and their followers owed a massive debt to the Church. To renege on those promises – and the fulfilment of these did not even amount to repaying what was owed – was to invite retribution.

But there would always be those who would try to flout the unspoken, unwritten rules agreed upon by their peers and superiors. These ambitious individuals sought to rise through the ranks of their respective organizations through a mixture of low cunning and the ruthless application of force. The more intelligent of these had begun to make backroom deals with other criminal groups not opposed to theirs, setting the groundwork for the day when they would replace their superiors. The last allowed these free rein as their efforts not only increased the influence of their parent organization but brought in money that could be used to better fund their own activities.

Giovanni Musco of the Escobar crime family was one such individual. Recruited at the tender age of 16, the red-haired man had slowly risen through the ranks to eventually become the right-hand man – one of several – to Paulo Escobar. The last had come to the Vatican, as was the tradition within the Sicilian underworld, to reaffirm alliances with those who had stood by him and to broker peace treaties with those whom the crime lord had warred with for the past year. The likelihood of such a thing ever coming to pass was rare, and a truce was the best either party could ask for. Nonetheless, such compacts were sealed in the presence of a high-ranking church official. Tradition was everything in the Italian mafia. For any to renege on oaths sworn before the Holy Book and a representative of the Church was beyond the pale.

The red-haired Escobar underboss wished his superior had not asked him to accompany him to the Vatican. The _caput mundi_ was a boring place. He would much prefer being in Poland, settling matters with the Russian mafia. The latter's grip on several outlying Polish cities and towns where the Escobar family had business interests was tightening and there have already been incidents where the family's _soldat_ have been killed. Such an affront demanded retaliation, and Giovanni was second to none when it came to making those who crossed the Escobar family pay.

But for now, Giovanni did not mind showing the local ruffians where they stood in the scheme of things while enjoying the hospitality of the local bordellos and nightclubs. And with the presence of so many beautiful and willing women, the Italian man was spoilt for choice. That was, until his eyes came to rest on three beautiful women who were perusing the wares of a nearby stall. No, to call them beautiful was akin to calling the sun a candle. There was something dark and primal about them which spoke to the baser instincts, a sensuality and strength that was as alluring as it was potent.

Giovanni ran an appreciative eye over their lush, strong bodies and pondered which of the three women would be able to meet his needs. Would it be the pink-haired Japanese swordswoman? Or maybe the brown-haired Chinese flower? Or the blue-haired girl, the one whose customized Holy Order robes bared enough skin to make even the most pious of men curse their oaths of celibacy and the most jaded of them to know that there was more beyond what they knew and had already tasted.

Or maybe, he could make some money selling them to one of the regional warlords he had had dealings with.

He remembered what his contacts had told him when they met some weeks back. Several regional warlords who were fighting for control over what was left of the North African Union and the former United States of America were keen on acquiring beautiful women to warm their beds. Giovanni had sold several such girls from Eastern Europe to a particularly brutal warlord in Sudan some seven months ago, a transaction that gave the Escobar family access to the arms factories and the poppy fields under his control. How much would Giovanni get selling those three women to him? What favours would be owed the Escobar family in the process? Or should he? There were plenty of wealthy, bored nobles both within and outside Europe who would pay handsomely to have such fine additions to their personal stables. Giovanni knew that his actions may very well displease the Sudanese warlord, but he could ill-afford to show favouritism in his business dealings. Doing so would land both him and the family in hot water later on.

Giovanni frowned. How would he deal with this…?

The answer came to him as the brown-haired Chinese woman haggled with the storekeeper regarding the price of a metal-topped battle-staff. He nodded to himself. Yes, that would resolve the issue in a way that would not offend his business partners. An auction would not only allow the head of the Escobar family to meet the men and women whom Giovanni and his fellow underbosses had brought into the fold, but to raise extra funds as well.

Giovanni grinned inwardly. He could almost imagine the pandemonium that would erupt when the auctioneer dragged the three women to the block. That and the money he would make. Should he make enough, the red-haired Italian underboss would be able to equip his best _soldat_ with the best weapons and armour that money could buy. But first things first: he wanted a taste of these women. And from the hungry looks many of his men sported, so did they. That was fine with Giovanni. He did not mind sharing.

As if sensing their intentions, all three women paused in whatever they had been doing and turned to look at Giovanni and his men. The expression on their faces was not one of fear, as they had expected. Rather, it was one of cold amusement. That caused the men to hesitate briefly. The Japanese woman lowered the small barrel she had been carrying over her shoulder and reached for her sword. Her brown-haired counterpart spoke briefly to the storeowner and readied the staff she had been perusing, taking a stance that Giovanni recognized being used by the bodyguard of a Chinese merchant a local gang had tried to harass a day before. The end result had seen to six very badly beaten youths being dragged away by the local constables, who had thanked the merchant's bodyguard for doing their work for them.

But the reactions of the two Asian women paled in comparison to their younger, blue-haired companion. The girl had drawn the sword belted around her slender waist with agonizing slowness and pointed it at Giovanni and his men. Hoarfrost rose from the blade and a blast of cold, arctic wind caused both the Escobar underboss and his _soldat_ to shiver despite themselves. There was death and hatred in that wind, which rekindled memories in Giovanni and his underlings of the time when the _Yuki-Onna_ Gears had turned an entire district of the Vatican during the Siege of Rome into an icy hell. But more than that, it evoked in them a primal fear of the darkness, and of being hunted by monsters that made prey of man and Gear alike. Tormented voices speaking in long-dead tongues echoed in the ears of Giovanni and his men, even as the torches and mana-powered lanterns in the area began to dim and dance in the unholy wind.

The red-haired Escobar underboss gritted his teeth, fighting back the terror that threatened to unman him, as he pulled his pistol out from its holster and pointed it at the girl. His arm was shaking as his anger warred with his instincts, the latter of which warned him that the first shot he fired would very well be his last. The girl's golden eyes were bright with malice and Giovanni glimpsed, for the briefest of moments, angelic wings emerging from her back. One was black as night, the other the silvery-blue of sun-warmed ice. In the shadows of each, he saw entities whose power would have laid an entire world to ruin. Both glared at him, daring him to pull the trigger. Death was already standing behind him, his scythe ready to strike and his skeletal leer all but mocking him for his temerity to strike down one greater than he. God, the Reaper whispered, was not going to save him. He did not have the power...

An armoured fist suddenly closed around Giovanni's upraised hand, breaking the latter's grip on the gun and causing it to fall into the hands of a hooded individual who had somehow materialized out of thin air.

"It has been a long time, Giovanni Musco," an all too familiar voice broke through the miasma of fear that paralyzed the red-haired Italian and his _soldat_, and causing the illusion that had gripped everyone in the square to disintegrate, "I heard from my contacts within the Vatican that you were in town and I wanted to have a word with you regarding a debt I am owed by the Family. I hope I did not come at a bad time."

"Aleph…" it took Giovanni several minutes before he could speak. The red-haired gangster swallowed hard, recognizing the murderous gleam in the paladin's eyes. There were few things in the world that the red-haired mafia chief and his men feared, and the young paladin stood high on that list. One did not earn the fear and respect of the underworld without good reason – and Giovanni and his men had been there, not so long ago, when that reason was made.

Aosta, located in northern Italy, had once boasted over a hundred thousand inhabitants at its height. For over two generations, the city had been a military stronghold whose defences had formed part of the Hadrian's Wall Defence Initiative which shielded the heart of Christendom from the wrath of Justice and her Gears. Its factories, farms and businesses had been turned to the support of the war effort, producing food, armour and weapons needed for the UN and Holy Order armies to keep the Gears out of Europe. When the Crusades finally ended, those same businesses were turned to more peaceful – and less profitable – endeavours. Realizing that nothing he did would change the mind of the city's leaders, Luigi Galliano, the head of the Galliano crime family, began looking for ways that would see to his coffers being filled.

That greed was used to the advantage of those who saw an opportunity to advance their respective agendas. Bargains were made and honoured, and the Galliano were soon welcomed into the company of those greater than they and raised high in their esteem. Money poured into the coffers of the Galliano family, opening up avenues that would have otherwise remained closed. It wasn't long before word of what he had done reached the ears of those who did not fear his patrons. The Inquisition sent a team to Aosta, an act which would set in motion a chain of events that would lead to it declaring the city beyond saving an razing it to the ground. It would, in Giovanni's opinion, had been more prudent had they done so at the very beginning, but the Inquisitor the Church had sent had wanted to try and save the people.

Knowing that overt action would lead to the world learning of what had transpired within the city, the Inquisitor opted for subtlety. He called in the debts owed him by the Escobar and the Bernetti crime families. They were to send in as many of their _soldat_ as they could spare to Aosta to support the kill-teams the Holy Order would send in. In return, he would consider the debts they owed him paid out in full and the estates of the Galliano to be divided between the two. The heads of both families complied immediately. The thought of settling accounts with the Galliano – especially with Inquisitorial sanction – was an opportunity neither would pass up.

What the _soldat_ of the two families and the Holy Order kill-teams found in Aosta was a nightmare that would haunt them for years to come. They would learn just what the Galliano family head had done in his desire to line his pockets and earn himself a place amongst the world's ruling elite. He did not know the whole story, but what little Giovanni had managed to learn was that Aosta had been the chosen site, due to the fact that it was within Galliano-controlled territory, of a top-secret military experiment, one that had been funded by conservative elements within both the Church and their allies in the Royalist faction.

Project Epsilon turned every man, woman and child within twenty miles of Aosta into a mindless drone obedient to the will of something the survivors of the Holy Order kill-teams called the Prophetess. How this was done, Giovanni did not know, but one of the more educated members in his group told him about something called a Psychic Resonance Device which had originally been used in Gears in the decades before the Uprising. The Escobar underboss did not understand what his underling had been talking about, but he got the gist of its workings. The Psychic Resonance Device – or PRD, as his underling called it – turned anyone and anything it was implanted in into an obedient slave. Giovanni had immediately seen the benefits – and the profits – of acquiring such technology and selling it on the black market.

When Aleph found out about his plans, he had made it quite clear that any attempt to do so would find the Inquisition, the Holy Order and the RUN's Office of Internal Security hot on his trail. And unlike him, they would punish him for his transgressions by killing him first and asking questions later. The fact that the paladin had looked like he had went through every circle of Hell and had yet to be satiated by the slaughter lent weight to the threat. Giovanni had almost soiled himself that time. To see the same expression on his face scant months later did not make his trying not to do so any easier.

"I see that you and your men," the dark-haired paladin spoke as he took Giovanni's gun from his Gear companion, "still lack manners, Giovanni. A gentleman does not force his attentions on women who are less than willing. Especially when said women are capable of killing you and your men," Aleph's red eyes slid to Giovanni's men, "faster than you can move."

"Those three…?" the Escobar underboss tried his best to look unruffled by what had transpired mere moments before, "You must be joking. The girl is a powerful Battlemage, true, but my gun has put down more of their kind than I have fingers and toes. And the sword and karate gimmicks her friends pack are nothing compared to the kind of firepower me and my boys are packing."

"True," Aleph replied, "But at this point in time, you do not have a gun. And if you start a gunfight, Giovanni, I will put you down. I am all too aware of your…activities. Activities I disapprove of. Believe me that I need only an excuse to do to do my friends in the IPF and the Methuselah Empire's Arbitrators the favour of delivering them your head. The only reason I have not done so is because you are still useful. And as long as you remain so, I will postpone the day of your execution."

It took Giovanni everything he had to maintain his composure. He knew that a wrong word out of his mouth would see him straight into Satan's waiting arms. The Daiklave the young paladin wielded had claimed more lives in the time Giovanni had known him than all the time he had served the Family.

"You don't need to yell, boy," the red-haired underboss replied, before looking at his men and jerking his head, an unspoken command to return to their seats, "I acknowledge the debt the Family owes you. What do you need?"

"I will brief you after I have spoken to those women. Believe me when I say that this job will make the Family head quite happy and raise your stock in the next meeting," Aleph returned Giovanni's gun before turning and walking to the three women. The paladin paused in mid-step and fixed a stern glare on the older man, "Oh, there is one more thing, Giovanni. Had you succeeded in abducting or hurting any of those three women, you and the Escobar family would have found yourselves in a war you could never win. You do not take what belongs to a King – even one excommunicated by the Church – without him taking your head."

Giovanni's eyes widened as words spoken to him by one of his 'customers', a UN Army sergeant, emerged from the recesses of his memory. There had ever been one man Crusade veterans the world over called their King. Giovanni had seen him once, during the darkest days of the Siege of Rome, at the Kashmir Nightclub. He had been accompanied by a scantily-clad, dark-haired guitarist whose performances had driven the crowd in the nightclub wild. The red-haired Escobar underboss had thought the woman out of the younger man's league, but the second was clearly uninterested in the long line of men who wanted to get into her pants (or get past her panties, as the case may be). His eyes fell on the Holy Order crest on the paladin's breastplate, the ornate sigil there unlike the ones that now adorned the uniforms of those who joined the Order in the years after the Crusades.

"Are you saying what I think you're saying…?"

"Yes, Giovanni," Aleph replied, "I am."

"He is here…?" the Escobar underboss swallowed hard.

"Yes, he is. So let me give you fair warning, Giovanni. If I find out – and I will – that you or any of your men were the ones that tipped off the authorities that my King is within the Vatican, rest assured that I will know. And I will promise you that the threat I made in Aosta will become a reality. Are we clear?"

"Crystal," the red-haired Escobar underboss replied. There were other women – and these were not too far away – who were safer and far more willing than the ones he and his men had been eyeing mere moments before.

**X X X**

Dizzy knew who the young man was long before he came into view. The blue-haired Gear Commander had sensed him the minute he stepped into the district, the blood and power coursing in his veins a bright flare that made even Necro and Undine turn their attentions briefly from the human refuse that had designs on both their mistress and her sisters. He had grown more powerful since they last met. Not only that, his retinue of Gears had grown larger. Among the three Angel-type Gears, the Gear Commander could sense a pair of _Yakshini_-type Gears, both of whom hailed from the distant lands of India as well as a Night Elf-type Gear, who hailed from the enchanted forests in Kazakhstan. The last was especially powerful, easily the equal of the Wardens who were tasked with guarding and patrolling the borders of that ancient land.

It had confused Dizzy at first. The Yakshinae and the Night Elves preferred to keep to the countries they were born in or which, in the case of the latter, they found conducive to their way of life. That they had chosen to leave their respective homelands told the Gear Commander that they had either been sent by their rulers on a mission or were treading the Path of the Wanderer.

The last time the Gear Commander had seen a Yakshini had been when she and the Jellyfish Pirates had landed in Islamabad, the former capital of the Republic of Pakistan. The purple-skinned Gear had been in the midst of purchasing several bags of salt and flour for her village when she caught sight of Dizzy. The shock on the Yakshini's face was one that Dizzy would not soon forget. After all, nothing made one more unforgettable than a series of accidents that wrecked several shops in short order. The Yakshini had dropped the entire crate of apples she had been carrying onto her foot, screamed like a cat on fire, hopped around the square (and swearing all the while) before actually stepping on a tail of an actual cat (which proceeded to show the Gear just how much it hated having its tail stomped on). It had taken the Gear the better part of twenty minutes to regain what was left of her dignity and paid for the damages, after which (with Johnny's permission) she had taken Dizzy and the other girls with her on a tour of the city.

Dizzy had been awed by what she had seen and heard there. Though ruined by decades of war, Islamabad was filled with life and vigour. There was hope in the streets and determination in the step of its people. It was a microcosm of the dream that was slowly taking shape in the west, where one of her mother's lieutenants set about creating a world that would spite the hatred and memory of those who had brought about the Crusades. The blue-haired Gear Commander could remember the _azan_, the Muslim call to prayer, as it echoed over the city in tandem with the ringing bells of its largest cathedral. She remembered the smell of burning incense and of food being cooked over communal stoves. She beheld children playing in the city's parks and on the rusted, burnt out wrecks of war-machines that had been used in a forgotten war, their carefree laughter a promise of better days to come. She and her friends had stopped to listen to an old woman telling stories to her grandchildren of a time when love and honour were more than just words. They, the old matriarch had said, were a promise to the people one loved and to a homeland that waited and prayed for one's safe return. They were a prayer to the Almighty for a world where lovers laughed and where children had hope.

The Yakshini had told Dizzy that Islamabad was a far cry from the rotting city it had once been during the years of the Crusades. During that period, the fortress-city had been regarded by many as the second Roanapur. But where the crime lords of that coastal city had common purpose in preserving what was their haven, those of Islamabad cared more about power, money and influence. Fierce gun-battles between them were common, and the hospitals could barely cope with the wounded being flown in from the front in nearby Iran and Afghanistan as well as those who have been shot by feuding gangsters. The constabulary was both inept and corrupt; those who could make a difference had either been killed or had been transferred elsewhere by those who wanted to continue enjoying the decadent pastimes the triads offered.

All that had changed when the Methuselah Empire sent in her _boyars_ and its legions to bring what was left of the South Asian Coalition under the rule of the Emerald Throne. It was an act – one amongst many – that would infuriate the RUN. Many of the countries that the Empire had brought under its rule had once been part of it. As such, the occupation of the region was an act of war, a charge the Empire's representative to the RUN Senate had denied. How was it an act of war when those whose responsibility it was to restore those same countries turned a blind eye to the suffering of its people? How was it an occupation when the people of the region and its desperate leaders had asked for help against an insidious, cruel enemy who desired to build a theocratic super-state whose very existence was a slap in the face of the Prophet they so revered? If the RUN lacked the resources and the political will to restore the failed states of southern Asia to their former glory, then the Empire would do it for them.

It was only much later did Dizzy learn from a captured Black Templar who had been sent as part of an RUN-sanctioned strike team why the Empire had acted the way it had. Prior to his excommunication, the Gear Commander's mate had tried to divert resources and manpower to prevent South Asia from collapsing into anarchy, but his political enemies within both the RUN and the Church would have none of it. They had wanted those same resources to be diverted to central Europe, so as to ensure that they could check the growing power of the Empire. Left with the stark choice of abandoning those that needed help desperately and acceding to the demands of his political enemies, Ky Kiske pursued the only option left to him: he asked the Emerald Throne of the Methuselah Empire for help.

"_I have committed many sins, Dizzy. But the crime I committed on behalf of those who do not have the strength to protect their loved ones and their homeland is not one I am ashamed of."_

Johnny had once told Dizzy that the world was a dangerous place not because of the monsters that lived in it, but because of those who permitted said monsters to do as they pleased. To defeat both the monsters and those they bargained with, one needed be strong, cunning and merciless. Ky Kiske had been a rare exception to that rule, in that he had been just as well. He never punished those he could reform, and never abused the power that had been vested in him by the Church and the RUN. He had stood as a reminder to both the wicked and the despairing that the ideals they had either lost faith in or looked down on still existed.

But there were those monsters who knew no fear. Or thought they did not know its meaning.

The blue-haired Gear Commander drew the sword the Master of Legions had given her and pointed it at the red-haired man and his compatriots, even as she reached out to Aleph and the Gears in his entourage, asking that they come to her aid. Their reaction was immediate: they stopped whatever they had been doing and converged on her location. All they needed was time to get to where she and her sisters were, and this Dizzy was capable of giving them. But how should she go about doing it?

Ah, that would work. Humans were creatures of instinct and reason. And if Dizzy knew one emotion that could overwhelm both, it was fear. An old book written by a human writer named H.P. Lovecraft had once said that the oldest and strongest emotion within humanity was fear; and of that primal emotion, the most potent was its fear of the unknown. A cruel laugh rose from Necro as Dizzy asked her Guardian to lace the icy wind Undine would bring about with the cold hatred of the underworld. Hoarfrost and cold mist rose from the blade, the sinuous script running down its length glowing with a cold light. A sudden blast of cold, arctic wind caused everyone within the vicinity to tremble. Dizzy felt the darkness in her snarl, a fierce hatred of these humans who wished ill on her sisters and their unborn children and whose masters were instrumental in their mate's fall from grace. It would be so easy to rain fire and ice on this city and consign its inhabitants to oblivion.

The red-haired Italian man pulled a gun out of his jacket with a shaking hand, and aimed the weapon at her. The Gear Commander grinned. For all its faults, the human was sharp. It knew what she was about to do and had one chance to stop her. Unfortunately, it would take more than just a mere handgun to kill her, and less than a second for him to lose his head. Dizzy's eyes slid briefly to Baiken when she heard the latter draw her blade before she turned her attention to Jam when she felt the fierce, fiery _Ki_ that was Chinese martial artist's _anima_ banner erupt. Dizzy revelled in the fear that washed off the man and his fellows; they knew that they could not hope to win against one whose strength could lay cities to waste.

And then, suddenly, it was over. Not because one of them struck the first blow, but because Aleph and his retinue had arrived. The son of the Master of Legions and his Gears had materialized out of thin air and ended the fight then and there. The young man had, even as he gripped his older counterpart in a vicelike grip, leaned in and made it clear that any attempt to proceed with whatever it was they had planned would be a mistake they would not live to regret. The second wisely backed down before the first lost his already-fraying temper.

And what was this about Aosta…? Could it have something to do with that terrible, psychic scream that Dizzy had heard halfway across the world some months back? The Gear Commander did not know from where the soul-chilling death cry had originated from, but it was clear that the dark-haired young man that walked towards her had something to do with it. After all, the dying monster – for it could be nothing else – had screamed the name of the young man before her with a mixture of despair and longing. There was a story behind that, and it was one Dizzy wanted to hear.

"Dame Kiske," Aleph bowed before Dizzy, addressing the Gear Commander by the name she would soon bear in the days to come, "I was looking for you and your sisters. Lord Kiske has sent me to inform you that he will not be able to make it back for dinner tonight, as there is someone who wishes to speak to him in private."

"Oh…? Who is this person and where is boya meeting him?" Baiken asked as she reached down and picked up the small cask of sake she had laid down earlier in preparation for the fight that the young man before her had averted.

Aleph hesitated briefly, remembering what the powerfully-built, brown-haired swordsman had asked of him as he left Via Fortis to seek out a representative of the Escobar cartel to call in a favour that was owed him. The latter had been standing in the courtyard and smoking, his eyes taking in the fireworks that soon illuminated the night sky. He remembered how his Gear companions had reacted. Weapons had left their sheaths and Charms crackled around raised hands. There had been fear written all over their faces.

Aleph could not blame them for being afraid; every Gear alive knew just what the Red Dragon of the Holy Order was capable of. He had been shaking as badly as Giovanni had been in the latter's presence. Had it not been for Hiroko, Aleph knew he would have done something he would not live to regret. His surrogate mother's acerbic comment regarding the Red Dragon's penchant for coming in too hot and heavy made the brown-haired swordsman laugh, before the latter turned a penetrating stare on him. The frown on the big man's face faded seconds later and he nodded, as if finding something he approved of.

"_So you are the son of the Holy Boy's Master Chief and that vampire chick, eh? Project Messiah was some guy's ego trip, but I see something good had come out of it. You know who I am, boy, so introductions are a waste of time. I need two things from you. First, I want to know where Ky Kiske is. Second, I want you to babysit his girls. Can you do that for me…?"_

"Aleph…?" the voice of Jam Kuradoberi broke the young paladin out of his thought.

"Commander Sol Badguy has gone to meet Lord Kiske at the Grand Cathedral of the Blessed Lady Saint to…settle some old scores," Aleph replied, as he turned to look in the direction of the basilica that had been erected over a century ago to honour the Lady Saint Mary Magdalene, "He asked to ensure that none of you interrupt their…conversation."

Dizzy exchanged exasperated looks with Jam and Baiken. They all knew just how a conversation between Ky Kiske and his arch-rival would end – with plenty of collateral damage, a badly-burnt (former) Lord Commander of the Holy Order and his snickering nemesis standing over him. Rare were the times when the second won a bout. When he did, the Red Dragon of the Holy Order would find out just how far he could fly without utilizing his Gear-granted abilities.

"And before any of you ask me why I let the cat out of the bag," the young paladin added stonily, "I will tell you that I dared not do otherwise. My companions and I do not have enough lives to waste on a man who can kill a Typhonian elder dragon in one shot. I may be crazy, but suicidal I am not."

"Wiser words have never been spoken," the amused smirk on Baiken's face made her nephew look away, "And no, you are not going to hear the end of it. I'd daresay that because of what you have done, you have practically delivered into our hands one of the oldest families in the Kuwaiti Royal Family. And don't laugh, you two" Baiken looked at the snickering Beth and the grinning Hiroko, "This debacle is as much your fault as my nephew's. And believe me when I say that the elders of our clan are going to have words with you sooner or later."

**X X X**

_**The Broken Sword Inn**_

_**Trajan's Market, Rome**_

_**30 minutes later…**_

Baiken had managed to secure several tables on the second story of the Broken Sword Inn for her sisters and Aleph's companions. The tables overlooked the main floor where dozens of men had gathered for the night, many of whom had come for the Broken Sword's excellent boar and for the entertainment that the inn offered. Though less raucous than most other locales in Rome's red-light districts, it nevertheless boasted the same stripe of eroticism that many who frequented such locales went for. The stage boasted several scantily-clad dancing girls who swayed and swung to the beat of drum and flutes, and waitresses in clothes that were a shade better than their colleagues moved among the tables, serving drinks, food and flirting shamelessly with their customers. The inn's bouncers kept a wary eye on its patrons; it would do both them and their employer no good if their workplace was destroyed by a brawl or a miscast Charm.

The pink-haired swordswoman pulled out a stool and sat opposite the dark-haired, half-Gear son of the Master of Legions. She had plenty of questions to ask the latter. Prior to Ky Kiske's arrival to the Vatican with Jam and Dizzy, Baiken had heard some disturbing rumours from her contacts regarding the Church's Puritan faction. Two in particular concerned her. The first revolved around the plans of which the annexation of the Kingdom of Illyria was but a part of. The second involved an individual whom her distant ancestor had faced during the Fifth Grand Grail War over three hundred years ago, and whose power had devastated Baiken's hometown at the height of the conflict.

"I have some questions regarding some rumours my contacts within and outside Rome have shared with me, Aleph-_chan_," Baiken pulled her pipe from her sash, filled it with tobacco and proceeded to light it, "Also, I would like some information regarding a certain individual whom some of my informants within the city have seen leaving the homes of many of the Puritan faction's members on more than one occasion."

"May I have a name, Miss Baiken? There are many people who are hoping to get into the good graces of the Puritans these days."

"Archduchess Fatimah Ibn Ya'allah of Syria," the pink-haired swordswoman replied.

"I have to admit that I know little about her, Miss Baiken," Aleph said after a brief silence, "My superiors have been trying to find out more about her. Everything about the Lady Fatimah is a mystery. What little we have managed to learn about her is that she is the adopted daughter of a powerful Middle Eastern family and that she is but one of eight representatives the clan head has sent to oversee its businesses in eastern and Central Europe. With Rome slowly becoming the centre of trade in the region, her being here can only mean that the Ya'allah clan wants to have a place at the table. The Guilds are less than pleased by this and have petitioned the city council and their allies in the Church to block the Ya'allah clan from setting up shop in the Vatican. Cardinal Lybrand had sent me on more than one occasion to 'persuade' certain parties from stirring up unrest. I have not always been successful."

"Were there…?" Jam asked, the fury in her brown eyes matching the disgust in the young paladin's own.

"Yes, Miss Jam," Aleph met the Chinese martial artist's gaze, "There were. My friends within the constabulary believe that we have an extremist group running around, and have set up a task force to deal with them. I participated in a recent operation in Milan against them. We arrested a dozen men and women, all of whom were members of the Christian Allegiance group."

The sudden drop in temperature told Baiken and her companions that the anger of Dizzy had been stoked. One look at the voluptuous, blue-haired Gear Commander made that clear. The Gears of Aleph's retinue were nervous; none of them wanted to be within a city block of the latter when she was moved to ire. Jam put one hand on Dizzy's clenched fists, a gesture that calmed the raging Gear Commander down enough for Aleph to ask her if she had had a run in with the powerful extremist group once before.

"Yes, I have," Dizzy replied after several minutes, "I have never spoken to you about this, Jam, Baiken. It is a bitter memory that our beloved wishes to forget and I want you – all of you – to promise me that you will **NEVER** bring this up in either word or writing. The reason I am sharing this with you is because you deserve to know the truth before others make it a lie."

Jam and Baiken exchanged looks with Aleph and his compatriots, before the pink-haired swordswoman asked the Gear Commander what it was that so tarnished the honour of their mate and left a scar on his soul.

"You may find it hard to believe that the Christian Allegiance group was once known as the Order of the Iron Cross and that they had once been part of the Holy Order, but it is the truth. They were founded in the years after the Third World War by Cardinal Louvre Bernstein of the Puritan faction to act as its agents and honour guard. And for a time, that was their purpose. That changed with the discovery of _Principia Magicus_ and the creation of my race," Dizzy leaned back into the shadows, her red eyes blazing like crimson suns in the darkness, "The mandate of the Order changed from being the Puritan faction's protectors to being its assassins. Their aim was to restore the Church's pre-eminent position in society..." the rustle of wings saw to the Gear Commander's feathered pinions folding about her lower belly in a protective embrace, "…and to kill those whom they believed had no place in their world."

Beth and Hiroko both flinched at the loathing in the Gear Commander's voice, but neither said anything. They could not. The Purity Crusades was a black mark against those who served God. Muslims, Christians and Jews alike had committed atrocities the likes of which would have made the Devil laugh in triumph. How many have died in the Inquisition's gulags? How many were reduced to test subjects in the UN's research laboratories? Hundreds, if not thousands, have begged their jailors for mercy. They did not receive any. Hatred and fear had driven compassion and reason from their thrones, and had seized – and poisoned – the human mind and spirit in those dark days.

"They named those whose lineage had been tainted with the blood of my race heretics. They branded intellectuals and artists criminals. They named scientists, lovers and peacemakers as traitors to humanity. How do you reason with those whose fear and hatred blinds them to mercy and reason? How do you fight against the very institutions which were made to defend you? Whose strength and reach far surpassed your own and which, at one point or another, you may have been part of? You cannot. You have no choice but to run and hide."

The parallels between what had transpired during the Purity Crusades over a century ago and the hunt for Ky Kiske was not lost on either women. But if there was one difference between then and now, it was that those who sought to lay the White Knight and his compatriots low soon learned that it was a task not easily accomplished. For one, the former Lord Commander of the Holy Order was a puissant warrior and a master strategist. Every assassin and bounty hunter who had the misfortune of facing the White Knight in person soon learned that the stories of the latter's prowess in battle did not even begin to do him justice. For another, those who had followed Ky Kiske into the inferno of the Crusades refused to abandon him in his hour of need. The authorities had lost count of the number of Holy Order Knights and UN Army soldiers who had chosen to don the traitor's cloak and turn the same weapons they had raised in humanity's defence on those who would do its saviour harm.

"Were there any who resisted?" Aleph asked, trying (and failing) to keep his hands from shaking.

"Yes, there were," Dizzy replied, as she reached into her wings and pulling out a book which Aleph had seen once before within the secured confines of the Grand Library deep beneath the Vatican, "One does not carry out a campaign of genocide on a global scale without arousing the ire of those whom you have chosen to persecute. And there were many who had chosen to defy the powers-that-be of the time, in ways both large and small. I'm sure you've heard stories about what people like Robyn of Sherwood or Captain John Merrick of the Sky Dragon Corsairs have managed to accomplish despite the odds."

"I have. And I am aware of what it is they stood for and what they gave to right the wrongs committed by those who thought themselves beyond punishment," Aleph said, "But that does not answer the question, Lady Dizzy. What exactly did the Christian Allegiance do that has so earned your enmity? And what is it that I…" the young paladin paused briefly, before correcting himself, "that we need to know before the truth is made into a lie?"

Dizzy glanced at the book she had laid on the table, and it slid across to rest before Aleph, "You may have heard the rumours that the _Exterminatus_ order that destroyed the Shire and the lands surrounding it was given by my mate. You may also have heard of the reasons why he did it. The rumour is true but the reasons why he did so are false. He did not do it because one of my mother's lieutenants was in the midst of amassing an army there or because a local warlord had managed to find a cache of pre-Crusade weapons. No, he destroyed it because he learned that the Christian Allegiance and the Post-War Administration Bureau were on the verge of successfully creating a psychotropic drug that, once introduced into the water supply of any major city, would turn its inhabitants – Gear or human – into mindless slaves that would only obey the commands of either organization without question.

"The forty thousand people that lived in the Shire were beyond saving. They were the drug's first test subjects. And believe me, he tried to save them. He led five Deathwatch teams into the town to secure both the data pertaining to the drug and the scientists who had created it. Less than a dozen made it out, and this was only due to the timely intervention by a Holy Order sector fleet that had been engaged in exercises in the region.

"You were one of the teams sent to Aosta to purge it of the monster that the Galliano family and their backers had created, Aleph. You did what needed to be done. Doing anything less means that the people you love will die. What happened at the Shire all those years ago was no different to what had taken place in Aosta. I would not be surprised if those who were responsible for the destruction of the Shire also had a hand in what had taken place in Aosta. There are far too many similarities between then and now for it to be mere coincidence…"

"Miss Dizzy," Beth asked, breaking the pensive silence that had overtaken the group in the wake of the revelation, "what happened to the PWAB scientists and the data Lord Kiske had managed to acquire?"

The Gear Commander turned to look at the female Templar, a faint smile on her face, "You're more astute than I thought, Dame Beth. Had you been part of the IPF, you would have been made a Magistrate before long. But to answer your question, the data that my mate had managed to secure from the facility was used by the Holy Order and UN scientists to create the Null Staves and Psychic Hoods now in use by the Holy Order's Battle-mages. The scientists, on the other hand, were taken into custody by RUN-OIS agents some three weeks after the incident. They were charged with high treason and executed…."

"At least, that is what they wanted others to believe," Beth rubbed her temples, "It has always been the dream of the Royalist nobles and the Church's Puritan faction to find a way to return society to a 'simpler time'. They aren't stupid enough to discard those that have the skills and knowledge to make that vision a reality. Miss Baiken," the dark-haired female Templar turned her gaze on the pink-haired swordswoman, "You were once an agent of the PWAB. Were there any scientists that the RUN and the Holy Order had had repatriated under new identities?"

Baiken chuckled, "My youngest sister was right. You **ARE** a sharp one. Yes, there were. Of the 14 scientists that Ky-_chan_ had managed to capture, three were given new identities and sent back to the PWAB. They were far too valuable for the organization to lose, and they paid an Emperor's ransom to the RUN and the IPF for their safe return."

"Who were they, cousin?" Hiroko asked, "Do you know their names…?"

Baiken blew a long stream of smoke, a look of distaste on her face, "I have met the worst society has had to offer, Hiroko-_chan_. But the people whose names you want to know? They are its _sickest_. No doubt you have heard of the one known as Professor Mark Stockholm, yes…? That is the new identity given to him by the UN. His original name was Raven Nevermore. The doctor was once a member of the Christian Allegiance before he joined the PWAB."

Several of Aleph's Gear companions shot up in their chairs at the mention of that name, and a hiss of fury emerged from the lips of the two Yakshinae.

"The good doctor was particularly fond of kidnapping those with Gear blood. They were capable of enduring far more than what normal humans could. His breeding experiments allowed for the creation of the PWAB's much-vaunted Janissaries – the organization's elite strike-teams. Also, the organs and blood of the _hanyou _were capable of returning a man in the terminal stages of any incurable diseases known back to full health. As such, the Corpsemaster has a lot of people who are all too willing to give him whatever he wants in exchange for his treating them," Baiken blew out another long stream of smoke, "But I think the good doctor has finally crossed the line with his last 'shopping trip' in Afghanistan. Your father – among others – wants him dead. You might want to join him to make an end to the good doctor."

"It will be my pleasure," Aleph growled, before looking over his shoulder at his Gear companions, "The pain, I will leave to my compatriots."

The pink-haired swordswoman nodded, "The second scientist is Arcanotechnology Master Engineer Luc d'Anguille. Of the three returned to the PWAB, he is the highest-ranking. If rumour is to be believed, he and the Red Dragons were friends once. He was born in France over two and a half centuries ago, before the Fourth World War. The creation of the airships and the geomantic algorithms that made the Engines of Creation possible were among his chief accomplishments. He was a good man, once…" Baiken's eyes became distant, "But grief can take even the noblest soul to stare into the abyss searching for an answer that it will not – no, it cannot – give. I have spoken and shared drinks with Luc d'Anguille, and he speaks of bringing his wife and twin daughters back from the dead. Should you ever meet him, Aleph, I ask but one favour: kill him. Make it swift and painless. Send him to join his wife and daughters who are waiting for him in Paradise. The old saying that evil is simply good twisted by hunger and thirst is all too true when one is to describe Luc-_san_."

"I understand."

"The third scientist captured is the only one whose name I do not know. What little I managed to find out about her is that she, of all the three that was released, is the oldest and the closest to the leader whose organization backs the PWAB. Second, she is easily as powerful as some of the Dragon-Blooded House Lords of China. She was the one responsible for killing half of the Deathwatch kill-teams that Ky Kiske had led into the Shire. Last but not least, there is reason for me to believe that she may once have been part of the Holy Order."

"What do you mean, sister?" Jam asked.

Baiken reached into her sash and pulled a ring made of rare moon-silver and orichalum, "She had this on her."

**(O)**

_**Alaska, United States of America**_

_**The Frozen Crown **_

_**Ruins of the Nexus Gateway Fortress**_

The Frozen Crown was one of thirty-eight regions worldwide that had been protected by international law. A harsh, untamed wilderness, it had been the magnum opus of environmental conservationists who wanted to create a haven where species on the verge or were being driven into extinction could thrive. It was here that the US Army and the government-aligned Golden Star Pharmaceuticals had set up their Sector Headquarters and their main R&D facility respectively. And it was here that the infamous Russian general, Aleksander Tsukarov, found his dream of bringing the United States to its knees devastated. Sol had been there over two centuries ago, fighting alongside some of the bravest men and women whose names history had forgotten, to preserve that which so many took for granted: freedom.

Sol coughed and glanced behind him at the obelisk that stood before the ruins of what had once been the Sanctum of Eagles, the command centre from which General Michelle MacArthur had directed the Alaskan army and naval divisions in a sixty-day long holding action that culminated with the Russian bear finally falling fangs and claws on the fortress. At the top of the obelisk was a golden eagle, wings spread and clutching thunderbolts in its talons, swooping down from on high like an angel of justice.

The Red Dragon of the Holy Order swore and leapt back, barely avoiding the blazing, crackling blade that cratered the ground he had been moments before. The impact sent a massive shockwave that threw the blasted remains of tanks and Battlesuits end over end. Sol turned aside the shockwave, grunting with the effort of doing so. He whistled when the storm of dust cleared and looked around him. Damn it, Holy Boy **HAD** taken some levels in bad-ass while his back was turned. The entire courtyard the two rivals stood in was totalled. And they had been fighting for what…? An hour, now…?

No. It has only been forty minutes, and he had taken no less than a dozen solid blows that would have killed a Fire Drake twice over. And to put the foot in it, Holy Boy was smiling. Smiling! The bastard was totally into this! Good – it wouldn't be fun otherwise! This was like fighting Kliff all over again – gloves off, blades out and going to town.

"You've gotten better, kid. Last time we danced, you relied mostly on anti-personnel techniques. Good in one-on-one; perfect for taking out Justice's footpads. But this…?" Sol looked over his shoulder at the destruction his younger rival's techniques had unleashed, "This is an anti-army technique. And it is one I have seen used by you-know-who long ago when she tore the Chinese Army a new asshole. And the one before that…? That one was used by the cutie you're shacking up with when she wiped the floor with the RUN shits that came after her and Cool Man Johnny. The stance you took to execute it…?" the First Gear raised an eyebrow when he realized just who had taught it to him, "That one was the sword girl's. Damn, I heard the rumours of you shacking up with three girls, but I never thought you'd be taking lessons from them as well."

"Among other things…." Ky Kiske replied, remembering what the Suzerain of the Methuselah Empire had told him prior to her sharing what she knew about the PWAB and their backers. He rubbed his neck where the powerful Shinso had bitten him, the ever-present ache intensifying. The former Lord Commander of the Holy Order chuckled; he knew he should have asked what exactly the price of knowing the capabilities of the clandestine group whose agents had infiltrated both the Empire and the UN had been. It would have spared him the embarrassment of almost passing out in the arms of one of the most powerful (and beautiful) monsters to walk the face of Creation in front of everyone else – which was, in hindsight, perhaps what the Methuselah Empress had wanted all along.

"_I will grant the Countess Leila and the Lady Irina their dearest wish, even as I finally resolve a matter that has long plagued both my Court for many years now. Though you may wish otherwise, beloved of my Saviour's Daughter, I cannot in my selfishness and greed refrain from taking that which would see to the endurance of everything we have fought and bled to make real."_

"Among other things...?" Sol could not stop his mind from going into the gutter, but who could blame him if one took into consideration just how scandalous the stories he had heard about his rival had been, "Among other things? Has this anything to do with the orgy you had in the Empire after that debacle in Illyria?"

"I will not dignify that with an answer, Sol," the younger man replied, and raised the hilt of the Thunderseal to his forehead in a salute, "But if you really want to know, I had no choice in the matter. I cannot outfight several very determined women who will not take no for an answer and whose idea of fun is to try and send me to God looking like I went through a Parisian whorehouse on my own."

It took Sol all of his considerable willpower to not erupt in laughter. He liked this Ky Kiske much more than the one he had fought alongside in the Crusades. The swordsman could not help but wonder what life would have been like with a more liberal Ky Kiske leading the Holy Order. Yes, yes, it would have been like that. He could imagine him and Holy Boy resting against each other's backs – the same way he had rested against his father's – after beating the crap out of every Gear that wanted to wipe the floor with them. He could imagine Kiske cussing him out the same way Kliff had, and then drinking and whoring the night away.

It was a picture that made the Red Dragon smile. Who knows…? Maybe Holy Boy will live long enough to do the same to his kids. He sincerely hoped that they would give their father hell. His thoughts were swiftly derailed when he heard – and smelt – the all too familiar howls of the Frozen Crown's pre-eminent predator: the Nemean wolves. Sol cursed and was about to tell his rival that their bout was postponed until he saw one of those big and very dangerous creatures slink out of the shadows of a ruined bunker and rub itself against the latter affectionately. The smirk on Holy Boy's face told Sol everything he needed to know as to why those oversized fur-balls had decided to crash the party, and he did not like it in the least. Ky Kiske, hero of the Crusades and former Lord Commander of the Holy Order, could command Gears. The swordsman knew who had granted his rival the ability to do so, and was banking on the fact that he would be able to disrupt the psychic link between the wolves and his rival. It would be fun to see the latter squirm when he realized that he was in the close proximity of no less than a dozen hungry wolves.

Sol winced as a sharp, sudden pain caused him to stagger backwards, a sign that something – or rather, someone – powerful was preventing him from carrying out his plan. A soft snicker at the back of his mind told him just who had his rival's back. Really, can this get any worse? Was God pissing on him for all the time he had called Him a sissy in robes?

"You cheat…" Sol growled in annoyance, "This was a one-on-one match, kid. Bringing in outside help goes against the rules."

"When one has to deal with a monster as powerful as you, Sol," the younger man replied as he took up a _Waki no Kamae_ (5) stance, "Rules need to be broken. Anything less is an insult and an invitation to injury. Besides, wasn't it you who told me back during the Siege of Rome that 'anything goes' in a fight?"

Sol twitched. Somebody upstairs clearly had been waiting to clean his clock, and was now snickering at the inevitable Mike Tyson-level deck-cleaner that was about to be sent his way.

"You do know that even if you called in a thousand of those fur-balls," the First Gear gave the massive wolves that were snarling at him a dismissive glance, "it does not change the fact that you're going to lose, kid. And badly, at that…"

"Win or lose, it does not matter," the former Holy Knight replied, "All I need is for you to be distracted for but a brief moment, and I **WILL** send you into a mountain, Sol."

"You're…ARGH!" Sol roared in pain as he felt sharp pain in his leg. He whipped his head downward to see that one of Nemean wolves had managed to sneak up on him and sink its fangs into him. He gave the beast a hard blow, sending it flying, and whipped around to find that Ky Kiske was already within striking range of him. Sol's eyes shot to his hairline and he whipped his Fireseal about to hit his smirking rival before the latter could land the blow.

"Got you," Ky Kiske's voice was the whisper of the winter wind as the Thunderseal slammed into him with the force of a runaway freight train.

"ARRRRGHHHH….!"

_**To be concluded…**_

_**Author's afterword**_

Finally! Another chapter done, another draft posted! This story has not been one of the easiest I've written, and I can tell, three chapters in, that my attempt to write another erotica has been hijacked by none other than my penchant for getting distracted. As it is, I hope the quality and flow has improved from my first draft and hope you enjoy my take on the Guilty Gear world (which has links to my GSD project).

And once again, do send a few reviews my way. It encourages me as it does my fellow writers on this site.

**Annotations:**

Blue Cosmos – the anti-Coordinator organization in GS and GD – has its roots dating back millennia to before humanity has left for the stars. Their…agendas have not changed much. Honestly, trying to negotiate with zealots is a waste of time.

The symbol of a golden cross with crossed thunderbolts superimposed over a double-headed eagle will be used in my GSD story. Now where should I put it…?

The Japanese Imperial Army fortress in the Vatican was modelled after Shuri Castle in Okinawa, but has modern facilities such as helipads, hangars, a shield generator and gun turrets (and reinforced battlements). The JIA Commander had named it Vatican-_jo_. Will have a place in my GSD story during the Break the World event (damn it, a spoiler…).

Landmark for GSD –US: Grand Canyon, Nevada is larger than the original. Thank Dizzy for putting the proverbial fist of God on it. What? Jesus does not pack nukes on her back; this girl does!

This is a kendo and kenjutsu stance where you hide the blade behind your body. Google it; it will show you what it looks like.


End file.
